CIEE High School Abroad

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 $$$)

I went to Sevilla, Spain for my junior year of high school with CIEE. In this year, I fell in love with the city. Spain has become my second home, and I have studied there 3 times now. I made so many friends and connected so deeply with my host family and teachers. CIEE had different excursions to Morocco, the south and north of Spain, activities in Sevilla, and more. I learned so much Spanish during my time there, and now I am majoring it in college. As a senior in college, I still look back at my time abroad and reminisce in my memories. CIEE was such a support and really encouraged cultural and linguistic immersion.

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