My First Educational Experience in Korea

From time to time, I pause to realize that the journey of learning never ends; it began with my first steps in elementary school and continues endlessly. This ceaseless pursuit of knowledge inevitably leads to a philosophical question that seems to hang in the air: "Does this constant striving for knowledge make me smarter, or does it reflect a certain foolishness in not being able to succeed based on what I already know?" Unfortunately, in search of an answer, I remain undecided, still without a definitive response.

My first acquaintance with Korean education was at Hanshin University's language courses in Osan, a very small university in a provincial town, hours away from Seoul. Prior to starting my studies, I had never learned foreign languages. In Russia, I was taught English at university, but it was quite mediocre. I won't tarnish the reputation of the institution by naming it; let's just say it was a rather mythical university in Russia.

I felt like a child standing before a gigantic mountain, utterly helpless with absolutely zero skills in foreign languages. I had to resort to an external company to assemble all my documents, learning a bitter lesson about the cost of ignorance when faced with a cruel bill of 400,000 just for application writing.

Many are curious about the language of instruction for Korean. Korean is taught in Korean, much like many other foreign languages are taught in their native tongues. It starts with the basics, the alphabet, fundamental concepts, and then moves on to more complex constructions. I must give credit to the teachers; they did quite well, making the classes interesting and selecting materials considering the lack of initial language and cultural knowledge. Lessons were held from morning till noon, followed by free time, which I spent on homework and walks. A course typically lasts 10 weeks or 200 hours, culminating in an exam. After the exam, you're either promoted to the next level or not. Generally, it takes about a year and a half to complete all 6 levels, but usually, the first four are enough for university admission, so the last levels often lack students. For those planning to enter a Korean university, a year of diligent language study might be sufficient.

You can start studying at any semester, but the standard times are usually in September, as in our region, or in March, when the academic year starts in Korea. Out of habit, I chose September, donning my student status right after the hot summer. This newfound academic environment felt like a refreshing breath of fresh air after almost a year of meaningless physical labor. The joy and freedom of no longer having to spend all day in a dirty workshop drenched in machine oil were exhilarating.

However, the time came when my savings, which I had diligently accumulated over the year, began to run out. It's a familiar story to many: you're not working, and your funds disappear. I faced the tough choice between studying and working. I remember waking up at five on cold winter mornings when everyone else was still sound asleep and heading out to look for work, surrounded by darkness, trying to stay warm. In Korea, there's a form of earning based on day labor. The downside of such work is the need to arrive at the office early in the morning and wait for an assignment. As a student, I was always at the bottom of the list for job allocation, and often there was no work left for me. On these days, I returned to the university, sleep-deprived, frozen, and having wasted money on transport.

Although the university was very small, I liked the language courses. Much of this, of course, was related to the novelty of the experience; in retrospect, I realize that the program didn't measure up to more prestigious universities. Nonetheless, I gained basic Korean language skills, completing up to level 3.

After the third course or about 8 months, my year's budget was exhausted, and my savings plunged into deep deficit. I had to urgently find a job and a place to live, as it became necessary to move out of the dormitory.