Korean Expat Community for National Disasters

Good day everyone! I am Hazel and I would like to use this opportunity to talk about my experiences as a graduate student under a PhD program here in Hallym University. I decided to go to Korea for my graduate degree because of my long-standing interest in Hallyu or the Korean Wave. I will talk more about this in my next podcast. So if you are interested in Kpop or Kdrama, I hope that you can look out for it! I also hope that I can meet fellow students who have the same interests as well! It was quite easy for me to adjust to the life of a student here in Hallym University. I think that living in the dormitory on campus is a great way to effectively manage my time and efforts on a daily basis. It is actually my first time to live in a student dormitory so I had to adjust to living with a roommate too, but it has been working well so far! It has been more than a month since I moved here on campus and I have established a regular daily routine. I usually wake up around 8:00 in the morning and I have my morning coffee while scrolling through my social media accounts and check my emails. I think that everyone also does this regularly! After coffee, I usually start preparing for class. My classes last from 2-3 hours per day and I am really enjoying the conversations and discussions with my fellow graduate students and my professors. After class, I usually go back to my dormitory or meet friends that I have made in the past few weeks. Aside from my classmates in the graduate degree program, I have also met other graduate international students from other departments and colleges in the university. I also met quite a lot of exchange students this semester. I have dinner at around 6:00 in the evening and usually spend my time reading or making the required papers before I prepare to go to bed at around 11:00 at night. I have always been an insomniac but I guess having a roommate who sleeps early is slowly changing my poor sleeping habits. I appreciate that graduate school has reignited the activity of reading for me. For this semester, I usually have to read around 6-10 journal articles or book chapters per week for my three graduate classes. Back home, I usually had very little time to read due to the demands of work and other things. Being a full-time student definitely has its perks! I record my daily activities in a journal. This helps me plan out the activities for the rest of the semester to ensure that I can promptly and punctually submit all of the requirements for my program. I also appreciate that there are so many great restaurants and cafés around the campus. It is always interesting to choose what to eat on a daily basis. I also really like the food served in the cafeteria, and it is so close to my dormitory and the building where I have my classes, too! I think the biggest adjustment that I had to do when I moved here was about the cold weather. Coming from a tropical country like the Philippines, it is challenging for me to get used to really cold temperatures but I guess that I would have to get used to it especially now that winter is coming! Thank you for listening, always keep safe and warm! I hope to see you around campus! Until the next podcast! Annyeong!