As the article on the first page shows, after declining due to the pandemic, the number of exchange students has risen since life in Korea has started to return to a new normal without social distancing.

Many international students are studying at SeoulTech. Often, they may be with other international students. However, it's hard to see international students and Korean students mingle together around campus. To know the reasons and find solutions, we conducted a survey of international students in SeoulTech.

55 students responded to the survey. Most (94.5%) were exchange students and the rest were undergraduates. First, we asked them how many Korean friends they have. 80% of respondents said they have no or only few Korean friends. Even more students (about 90% of the respondents) have no or only few Korean friends in SeoulTech, and only 2 of the respondents have quite many Korean friends.





 

Despite having few to no Korean friends at SeoulTech, most (more than 90%) of the respondents believe that Korean students can offer help to students who are studying abroad in Korea. There were various reasons why they thought so as they believed Koreans could help them with culture exchange, learning language, and acquiring information.







 

Despite being aware of the advantages of having Korean friends, about 75% of respondents said 'Yes' when asked about having difficulty making Korean friends. While one might suppose making Korean friends is easy, many international students have a hard time doing so. Then, why couldn't they make Korean friends easily? Most of the respondents said there were many factors, but the language barrier was the biggest cause aside from their general studying abroad itself.









 

Interview with an Exchange Student

Exchange students came to SeoulTech in order to have a beneficial time, but they can't easily be friends with existing Korean students who can give information and support. With the difficulties international students experience, how can they make more Korean friends and get along well with them? To figure out solutions, we had an interview with a SeoulTech exchange student who has plenty of Korean friends.

 

Hello, we are The SeoulTech. Please introduce yourself.

E: My name is Elif. I am an exchange student from Turkey. I have been studying in SeoulTech since February. I am only here for the spring semester and am studying Industrial Design here. I am taking Smart ID, design history, and design research courses related to my major, and other than those I am taking metal crafting and basic Korean courses.

How specifically did you make your Korean friends?

E: I made Korean friends from the classes as we had lots of group projects and it is easy to communicate while discussing the project. Also, I met a lot of Koreans while I was walking around and exploring the campus.

Although you have plenty of Korean friends, why do you think making Korean friends is not easy?

E: Because some people may be shy and do not want to speak English. They do not think they can speak so well and so they do not take the first step.

 

Are there any solutions that can help people overcome language barriers when they make friends?

E: It is difficult to communicate because of the language barrier, but if you really want to be friends with Korean students you can tell them that you want to improve your Korean and they can improve their English with you.

 

What do you think about Korean friends? Plus, is there anything you'd like to say to Korean students about making friends with international students?

E: Actually they are so friendly to me. They really want to share something with international students, but they are too shy to take a step. I think they should not be like this. Language is not a big problem.

 

Are there any tips for international students who want to make Korean friends and Korean students who want to make international friends?

E: International students should not wait for Korean students to start the conversation because 70% of them won't. They should encourage themselves to speak. Actually there are lots of things to talk about because we barely know each other. We can produce so many topics.



 

How to make Korean friends

We asked international students who had Korean friends how they made those friends. According to the survey, most respondents made Korean friends through their existing friends, but if there's no one who could introduce Koreans, school activities were the biggest source. Having group projects might offer a rare chance for students to mingle naturally, but even a project group can't be assumed to develop close friendships every time.

The interviewee suggests international students start conversations with Korean students when they have a chance. Although many international students feel a lack of opportunity to interact with Koreans, there's still some ways, such as club activities, to meet up with Koreans.

 

As we saw from the survey, it's obviously true that international students think making Korean friends is difficult and everything would be a bit harder without Korean friends. The survey results only included two responses from undergraduates, so the survey results may not speak directly to those students. However, it's very likely that this problem would be more serious for them. They probably spend much more time on campus than exchange students, but they also may have few or no Korean friends. They are supposed to take advantage of campus life as regular students, but as they have little interaction with Korean students, they are sometimes excluded from department chat rooms which offer lots of the information about that particular department.

 

Therefore, to improve the situation for international students who'd like to make Korean friends, SeoulTech should make more events and activities to offer opportunities for international students and Korean students to meet and interact with each other. Also, Korean students should be open to international students who may want to be their friend although international students may not speak Korean well. Many Koreans seem uncomfortable speaking in English, but some Korean students have had enough English education and many students will study high-level English to meet the graduation condition. They just do not have enough experience speaking, so they may feel too nervous about speaking English. They don't really have to be nervous for a casual conversation. Once they break the ice, they will probably hold a joyful conversation, as Elif said, with so many interesting topics to talk about between people from totally different cultural backgrounds.

 

In short, we can expect good harmony between international and Korean students if both of them make an effort to start a conversation and be grateful to make friends from different cultures.

At the same time, SeoulTech should offer more chances for interactions and assist international students to feel less alienation.

Reporter,

Eunkyeul Kim kyeul@g.seoultech.ac.kr

Reporter 김은결

• 직책 :
• e-mail : kyeul@g.seoultech.ac.kr