NSLI-Y Korean Summer Experience
In the summer of 2018, I received the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Scholarship to go to Seoul, South Korea to learn Korean language.
In Seoul, you could run into ancient palaces in the middle of a bustling, modernized metropolitan area. It was absolutely amazing as a history and architecture nerd.
I once went on the NSLI-Y program. This was my experience.
It’s been three years since I’ve been on the NSLI-Y Seoul program, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I thought to write this blog post as a sort of meditative reflection on the experience. Once upon a time I had a separate blog about NSLI-Y, but the program was too demanding and tiring for me to update it, then I lost the password. Brilliant Ashley, brilliant.
I went into the program with little Korean experience. I vaguely knew how to read, and I knew a couple of words from K-pop songs and K-dramas. I think if I went into the program a bit older or a bit more experienced in the language, I could’ve have managed to gain even more linguistically. I went from Novice Low in the language (complete beginner) to Novice High (advanced beginner) in six weeks.
I wonder sometimes if I could’ve gotten a higher level if we weren’t in Seoul (a lot of people spoke English, and if you were a foreigner, they would speak English and sometimes only English to you). If I were a bit older, I would’ve been more rigorous in my Korean studies, which is something I wish I was a bit more diligent about.
The program ignited a lifelong interest in culture and language for me. I applied to the CLS program (the college version of NSLIY) to a completely different language (I got it for Bangla/Bengali), but I haven’t given up on Korean! I go to a school that doesn’t offer it, so I self-study it on my own. I’d say I’m about intermediate now? I plan on attending graduate school to study anthropology or poetry, and language will be a key part in my studies.
One of my favorite parts of the NSLI-Y experience was how we were put into the culture directly. We lived with a host family, and I had to commute two hours from Anyang all the way to Ewha.
It was the real experience having to take a bus then subway for my commute. It was a bit harder to plan to do things, just because of the commute length and the curfew, but I thought it was a unique experience living in an area where there were almost no foreigners.
The cultural activities were also really interesting. For my supporter group, we ended up going to Bukchon Hanok Village, Gyeongbokgung, and Gwangjang Sijang in Dongdaemun for our activities.
We typically met at cafes for the study sessions, but we merged with two other supporter groups for our big activities. We also had Hanmi Camp, where we met Korean high schoolers, and our year we got to meet the Korea-Japan Cultural Camp at the US Embassy in Seoul, so a group of us got to meet more Korean and Japanese high schoolers.
All in all, I recommend the NSLI-Y program. I was a kid who had never been abroad or had a chance to study the target language, and it was the perfect opportunity to build a foundation in the language.
It also was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one many students will never have to live with a Korean family and directly be in the culture. It truly changed my life for the better, and made me much more appreciative about culture and the world.
Read more about my full experience here, where I broke down my daily life on program.
Note: This doesn’t reflect any viewpoints or perspectives of the US State Department or NSLI-Y program. This is just my personal experience and perspective.
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