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2009/04/24

About the ********* Scholarship

The ********* Scholarship means I will be getting paid to hang out with a family, speak my native language, see the far-corners of South Korea, adventure across Asia, get some awesome networking done, and add a prestigious fellowship to my resume. The following are three specific things that are particularly awesome, in my opinion:



On-The-Job Training
Upon arrival in Korea, scholars are bussed off to Chuncheon for 6 weeks to live at a college there, as previously mentioned. There, we take 4 hours of intensive Korean PER DAY. Some scholars arrive in Seoul with little more than a loose command of the Korean alphabet. After Korean, there are teaching workshops and subject-specific seminars, such as Homosexuality in Korea, Pop Culture, stuff like that. After all of that, there are electives that the scholars are offered. Cultural Korean classes such as salmunori (traditional percussion), tae kwon do, and calligraphy are offered for a small fee. Then, obviously, there's the ETA bonding: exploring the city together (re: getting lost together), eating out together (re: trying weird food together), and socializing together (re: getting drunk and singing karaoke together). together together together togethertogehtertheogr


Take me home, Country Roads
The ********* Scholarship will set me up with a homestay family near my school. This family will receive a stipend to help pay for my lodging (a private room in their house) and food (scholars have meals with their family). What I make of the homestay is up to me, but I hope to take full advantage of living in a typical Korean household for an entire year.


Dolla Dolla Bills Ya'll
That's a lie. But "Won won ya'll" sounds weird. The scholarship pays for my airfare to and from Korea (~$6,000, so that's pretty significant). Additionally, my monthly paycheck will be 1,600,000W. About 1.5 million won. Don't get excited, this translates to about $1,300/month. However, since I don't pay for rent, utilities, or food, all of this money is available for me to travel, eat out, and general tomfoolery.
Without the ********* Scholarship, getting a job teaching English in Korea is pretty intimidating and very easily could suck. So winning this scholarship basically enables the scholars to live and work in a country, care-free.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take taekwondo!