고대!

I got in!

I can't believe that I, Magnolia Cumby, will be going to university in Korea. If you had asked me where I wanted to go to college last year, I would've said aucune idée. I never in a million years thought that I would be getting my undergraduate at a university in Korea.

I'm so excited.

I leave late February. We are still trying to figure out costs and dates. Dorms open Feb. 27. I want to get there early so that I can settle in and meet people. The dorm rooms are incredibly nice and I'm so excited to start.

I have a few worries though....
Obviously, I don't speak Korean. At all. I can hardly ask for directions much less take a college level class in Korean. I'm not as worried as I should be though. I mean, the only way to learn a language is by dumping yourself into the language. I'll learn fast... it's just going to be incredibly hard.

I was talking to Keith (my Korean boyfriend) the other night. He was trying really hard to talk me out of going to Korea University. He brought up a few good points... he said, and my father agrees, that it's better to have a degree from an American university. It'll help later in life. Korea University is one of the hardest schools to get into in Korean... for Koreans. They only accept the top 1% of Korean students.

But,

They are very lenient with international students. It's a big school, over 34,000 students and they accept 4,000 international students everywhere. I am obviously not in the top 1%, but I show motivation (and me being American isn't bad either), so I got in.

Keith's been pestering me about it. He keeps saying I should think really hard before I go. I told him, that if I get there and I hate it, I can just quit and go to an American University starting in the fall. When I start Korea University in March, I'm just going to treat it like a trial semester to see how I like it.

Hopefully I'll get into NYU Shanghai. That would be ideal. They are only accepting 300 students, 150 of which are Chinese and the other 150 are from all around the world. They already have more than 200 early decision applicants... they are probably are incredibly smart and dedicated. They probably have much better SAT scores than me. I hope that NYU won't overlook me just because my SAT scares are not what they are looking for. I want them to know that I will be a perfect student and represent their inaugural class really well.

I mean if all else fails I stay at Korea University... or go to American University of Paris. What's wrong with that?

I'm so excited to start in February though. I can't wait to be able to speak Korean. I need to study a lot though. Once I get there it's going to be difficult to get used to everything. Korea has a very different culture. I'm going to have an epic culture shock.

I'm just so excited to leave.

I'll post again soon.

xx