CIEE HS Summer Abroad: K-Pop & Culture in Seoul

Traveling the world alone with new people was a once in a life time experience, I met very many people along the way and will be leaving seoul with new life long friendships! It also help me improve multiple skills that’ll eventually lead me towards success!

It was so much fun and I met so many lovely people! Great opportunity to experience different cultures. However, it can get pretty pricey depending on the location, and sometimes the planning/scheduling was poorly executed.

This experience was honestly that I will never take for granted. The people I met and the program overall has helped me a new perspective. I learned to be more independent and more of a good person overall. There are so many things that I have learned from this trip and I can't wait to have another experience like this one.

While i was abroad on this program i made some of my best friends and i am so grateful for it. Not only was i able to take in the culture around me but i was also able to improve my social skill when i talked to local students, and other students in the program. Overall i learnt many things while staying in Seoul and I made so many great memories that i’ll keep with me for the rest of my life!

Through this program I got to interact with different local high school students and the friendships continued after the program too. I believe if it wasn’t through this program I wouldn’t be able to meet these cool people.

The High School Summer abroad program for Seoul Korea session 2 was the best way I ouldve celebrated my summer. This program gifted me with a sense of individuality and helped me gain independence while still creations a bond between all of us attending. The bonds I made on this trip I truly believe will last a lifetime . The friend I made while in Korea on the trip with me and who just live there will forever be important to me . This program really opened up my world and broke that shelters view I once had and I believe it really prepared me for college in the sense that I will have to be independent and learn things myself.

Is a great experience because they get us the opportunity to explore lore places be our self do that we can make a lot of friends Ik the Program from around the world and you can also found our some of the friends you made leave like 45 min away from you

I participated in the CIEE Korea K-pop summer program and I had a great time! My favorite parts were dorm life— I LOVED my dorm. It felt super clean, had the best desk that I would totally buy for myself at home if I didn't already own one, there was a little self-serve convenience store with the best snacks and extra shampoo, a gym, and laundry facilities inside the dorm, and even better, my roommate and I got along great! The only drawback was that the shower wasn't separated at all from the sink space in the bathroom on the floor, meaning that while there was a standard glass shower door, the water would get all over the bathroom floor. But I'd stay at the Yonsei dorms as a college student, all four years if I could! I also loved the independance— we were given parameters to stay within ("don't leave these three streets, stay in Myeongdong, etc") and given a time frame ("you have until 1:30!") to roam free with our own little groups, completely unassigned! I'll be totally honest, I really just signed up to shop (I'm Korean American and come to Seoul annually, but wanted to get some time on my own to do what I wanted instead of just going to family reunions), and I was not disappointed! I still miss hanging around with my friends in Korea, all on our own. As for classes/culture, our music classes (we started with the history of music in Korea— then incorporated the Korean war, Korean pop culture, Hallyu, etc) were very informative, and our teacher was very enthusiastic. I've really never seen anyone that excited about k-pop, I think. We also had occasional Korean language classes— you might be bored if you even just know the alphabet, but you don't have them all that often. We also had some cultural field trips, all of which were fun— kimchi making in Insadong, fan painting, a night in a historic village, etc. And a tour of SMtown, if that counts. I got to meet so many people on this trip! From the people coming with me from outside Korea to the Korean students we hung out with and who gave us a tour of Gyeongbukgung Palace, you really get to meet a lot of people from a lot of different places. Overall it turned out to be so much better than I expected, and I would totally do it again! (but I'll probably just stick to staying with my relatives next summer, easier on the $$$)