Fulbright Diary: A Month in South Korea & Beginning My Grant

My first month of my Fulbright grant period has been fun, but challenging in other ways.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Today’s blog post comes from South Korea, where I’m doing a quick write-up of my first Fulbright month. I found out back in April 2026 that I had received my second Fulbright award, and I thought it was a bit of a second chance, as I never made it to India for my first award. I danced back and forth on accepting, but ultimately decided to go for it because the memories would be something I go back to forever.

My project is a creative writing award technically, but I grounded it in anthropology and oral histories. I’m specifically writing poetry documenting the stories of West and South Asian immigrants to Korea, which an emphasis on Seoul and Busan, although I think I’m going to be taking some side trips to Ansan in the near future.

That said, my first month here in Korea has been a great time! To add some context, I’ve been to Korea twice and lived here two months each time under different scholarships (NSLI-Y + CLS). I would describe myself as intermediate in the language, but there’s definitely a lot more to learn.

That said, let’s go into the breakdown of how my first month went overall!

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Taking Korean language courses can be rewarding, but difficult at Ewha Womans University.

So the Fulbright Korea research grant comes with a language study allowance for grantees, and as soon as I realized this was a thing, I knew I wanted to utilize it to the fullest. I’ve only ever formally studied Korean through intensive programs, and all of those classes were with other Americans.

I ended up deciding on Ewha’s short-term program for September. It’s a 3 week class that sprints through grammar, vocabulary, and everyday situations. I personally did not have a ton of time to study because of the nature of the Fulbright and needing to do other work for my project while I’m here in Korea, but I did feel like it was a good primer for setting my life up here.

I will say I did feel like they placed me a level lower, which ended up being alright because of the fact I had no time to study. I knew all of the grammar in the book and could understand everything I was reading, but I have a lot of trouble speaking at the end of the day and I know that this is something I need to work on.

I like the Ewha classes overall though. Both of my teachers were great, and my classmates were awesome too (more on that below). My only qualms with the short-term program was that by the end I was ready for it to be over because I wanted more time for my project.

I’ve never met so many new people in a single month ever!

Something that ends up happening on a Fulbright, especially research, is that you need to put yourself out there to find new social situations and make friends. You often arrive in these countries or cities without a support network or knowing anyone even, which means you pretty much have to start from scratch.

That said, I’ve meant an incredibly diverse range of people while I’m here. Not only is my Fulbright cohort full of talented people with a vast array of subject matters and expertise, but I’ve met previous Fulbrighters, Koreans who went to the US on Fulbrights, connected with Koreans locally, and made good friends in my Korean class with people from all over the world.

I would actually not describe myself as a social person. I’m good at holding conversations and meeting people, but my idea of a perfect Friday night is sitting at home and watching Netflix. While I have needed some nights (and even days when I can afford the luxury of time off) to recharge, I think being exposed to different perspectives is something I often take for granted.

Regardless, I want to keep making myself uncomfortable and meet as many new people as possible!

There’s definitely time to explore Seoul and the surrounding cities beyond project work.

This is something I worried about before accepting the Fulbright. While I’m devoted to my project and want these stories to come to life in ways that people never imagined before, I also wanted to see a little bit of Korea before I head back to the United States in these ten months.

I gave myself some grace and the first week before classes started I went to explore Seoul and some surrounding cities. I did all the tourist-y things I wanted to do, then headed over to the city of Suwon one day because I really wanted to see the fort. I think the fort was worth seeing and I will be back there on a day where I’m not dying from the heat.

I also ran through my budget and am trying to squeeze in as many weekend trips as possible before my time runs out. I’m going through and seeing if I can get hotels to places that are decent and within my budget.

Stay tuned maybe for more blog posts on those side quests? I think being busy has led me to not be homesick, so I’m having a good time so far in that sense. I haven’t felt any culture shock yet.

My project itself has come with some complications due to external circumstances.

Now for my actual Fulbright work! I alluded to earlier that my language class was squeezing out the time for my project, which I firmly believed in the moment and even now. I think it was worth it in some ways, but I do want to focus more on my project now and see what I can get done in October.

I wrote three poems during this time and started creating contacts among certain communities. For privacy reasons I’m not going to go further on that right now, but I think like I’ve made decent headway for the work I’m doing.

Do I wish I could have done more? Yes. I see the other Fulbrighters in labs and feel like that they’re doing so much more in that sense, but I think comparison may be the thief of joy here. I’m going to try and promote healthy expectations for myself going forward, but hopefully next month’s progress update I’m feeling better about this.

Chuseok is when I’m going to sit down and do outreach for some people I want to talk to, so I’m looking forward to that (and getting some rest!).

That’s all for this post, as it’s getting a little long. Stay tuned for more of my journey :)

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