ep 3 | my first week at yonsei uni

Week Two. A lot happened in my first week of class. First of all, I rethought my whole identity (kinda). I planned for my courses abroad way before this semester started. I thought being prepared months in advance would mean making a decision I wouldn’t need to revisit again, and I guess that can be true in some cases but not this one. My mentality coming into my semester abroad was to “make the most logical decision to complete my degree plan as fast as possible” which seems reasonable… but that was the mentality I had since I started college (even before that too, I had this mentality since elementary/middle school). In my case, I hustled my classes so hard that I could graduate a year early if I wanted to. When I sat in my first psychology class I thought “why am I approaching my studies abroad the same way I’ve always approached it back home?” and then boom. Whole 180 revelation. To be honest that was all I could think about for 2-4 days. Long story short: my solution was to find two classes that interested me personally and two classes that would go to my degree plan. But if I could go back and tell my past self how to decide on my classes, I’d tell her to take classes that interest me. Don’t worry about that psychology class or optimizing my degree plan on the only semester I have abroad. Just take the class that talks about Korean philosophy, Korean culture, Korean language, literally any class that I can’t take back home, and join the class where the professor tells stories about their experiences with their heritage. When I was sitting in other classes to see if I’d like it, I observed the way the professor taught their class, the energy they brought into class, and if this is the material I wanted to commit to. Second of all, abroad fatigue hit me way earlier than I thought… My first week abroad felt like I was on a tourist high where I was running around the city like a madman (Olive Young I’ll never forget you). And now I have to deal with being tired?? Bruh. Also I had the assumption that abroad fatigue would last one or two weeks and I’ll get over it then I’ll never have to deal with it again. WRONG. It lasted wayyy longer than two weeks but I adapted to it. But adapting doesn’t really mean getting over it ig 🙂‍↕️