Traversing the world is no easy feat, but TLU student Isabelle Rubio decided to take the leap. While completing her Business Administration degree, she chose to specialize in International Business, which requires the student to study abroad at least once. After countless hours of research, Isabelle chose to study at Yonsei University in South Korea over the fall semester. In this article, Isabelle details her culturally immersive experience.

The shocks and the succors:

Hailing from Floresville, Texas, Isabelle chose TLU because of the close community and small class sizes.

“I feel at TLU I get a quality education because our classes are really small, though some negatives are the limited amount of classes you can take because of when they are offered.” When comparing this to Yonsei University, she found that this aspect of TLU was similar. The quality of education remained the same in South Korea, though there were still negatives when finding classes she could take. While there were classes in English, the majority were in Korean, which seemed intimidating to Isabelle, even though she understood Korean. “It was harder to imagine myself taking those classes and imagine myself keeping up with native speakers.”

Isabelle met many like-minded exchange students in South Korea, quickly creating a friend group. Even though the class sizes were similar, Yonsei University was a much larger institution with a diverse student body.

“One of my favorite trips was to Busan, which is considered one of the largest cities in Korea. It is right by the seaside, and it is actually a beautiful tourist area, but it is actually very authentic. It is not really commercialized tourism but rather the actual Korean experience. There was just so much to do: like a sky capsule, the next day an amusement park, and an arboretum. The majority of the stuff was free, which was great when you are a study abroad student on a budget.”

–Isabelle Rubio

This trip taught Isabelle to be more adventurous and helped her get comfortable with traveling alone. “In fact, now, I prefer to travel alone,” she commented. “I feel like I can do more things by myself, with little to no hesitation.” Isabelle would love to go back to South Korea sometime, even considering living abroad.

Isabelle’s book recommendation:

“A book I would have to recommend is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. That is definitely my favorite book ever. I saw a book review of it, and I decided to read it because it is a different genre than I normally read. It is important to me because it tells the story of an unusual young man who lived a short life but also accomplished most of his personal goals before his life was tragically cut short.”

–Isabelle Rubio

Isabelle believes this book would benefit the TLU community because of its focus on pursuing individual goals. Primarily, it features a young man concerned with living his most authentic life.