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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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 Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:05 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
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| If I'm advising any 18 year old, I'm going to recommend that they attempt to expand their horizons and open as many doors as possible. While Korea would certainly be an interesting experience, this girl would be chaining herself to a country with relatively limited global scope. |
Would we say the same thing if she went to Greece? Hungary? Portugal? Romania? Finland? Thailand?
Certainly Korea has more global scope these days than any of those countries, and their languages are about as useful as Korean, save perhaps Greek amongst a thin slice of Academia/Clergy. |
Greece, Hungary, Portugal, and Romania? Seriously? You'd be any idiot to chain yourself to any of those sinking ships. Get yourself a degree from an English speaking country, study abroad if you want, perfect your language skills by other means, but don't get yourself a degree that will be leave you tied to a single country of which you are not a citizen. Korean economy tanks, where is this Canadian? You can't even teach English as a fallback if you study at Korean university.[/i] |
Maybe for 1, 2 and 4, but not Portugal thanks to its former colonies (total 250 million) and similarities to Spanish, for an extra 400 million with not too much extra effort. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:10 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
Well, it really depends on what you major in. Majoring in Hungarian might be a dodgy call, pursuing a degree in say, engineering, while studying in Hungary less so.
Besides, if on September 10th, 2001 you told people you were studying Urdu, Pashtun, Farsi, or Kurdish they'd laugh at you and say that that was useless for getting a job.
The world can change on a dime.
The bottom line is the OP's niece is old enough to vote and join the army. In the end you can either stand by her or naysay her the entire way and never believe that she is anything more than a "little girl". By all means state your concerns, but always support her. If you support her, either way things go, she'll appreciate you. Naysay her, and if she succeeds, she will remember your lack of support for the rest of her life. Is that worth it when it comes to family? |
And it would still be incredibly stupid to spend your entire undergrad in Pakistan. |
It really depends on what field you're looking to get into. If it's intelligence then fluency in Urdu can net you a $35,000 signing bonus:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-04-19-language_N.htm
The tricky thing in getting an undergrad there is that the more time you spend abroad the harder it is to pass a background check. Anyone who is studying in Pakistan with an eye to getting into intelligence would be wise to keep written records and receipts of everything they do because those will all be looked into. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| If she really wants to live and work here. Her best bet is to study Korean in the summers. If she can learn to read the written language first then know a handful of words. She should get some Korean Canadians to tutor her a few times too. She doesn't need to know much. Just enough to have a very basic foundation. She can study the rest here. She also needs to go to univeristy back in Canada. This way, she can be a native English teacher here in the future and live quite freely. She can have an income and support herself living the Korean lifestyle. She won't be doing much being uneducated and not speaking the language now. But she must have her full four years completed in an English speaking country. Korean universities ironically won't be accepted by Korean immigration to teach English here later on. If she wants to live here for years, being able to get work as an English teacher will allow her that. Four years will pass quickly, then she can get over here once she's 22. (She cannot go to any French language university, only an English speaking one in Canada.) |
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fionnjameson
Joined: 11 Mar 2013
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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I'm totally against a Koreanaphile coming into Korea knowing absolutely nothing about the real culture of the country and having learned everything about Korea from dramas and kpop videos.
That said, it's actually very easy for foreigners (those of 18-19 years old) to get accepted into major Korean universities. A lot of universities want to brag about how many foreigners they have at their school, so OP, your niece should look into that. Her major would most likely have to be International Studies since all those classes are held in English. Most Seoul universities such as Hanyang U and Koryo U are about 4k a semester, with not a whole lot of financial aid, so she's probably going to have to come up with the majority of that on her own. If she's fairly attractive, she might be interested in entering the entertainment industry to make some money, although what I've heard from such places about supposed prostitution of their "trainees"...
But. Please. Tell your niece to learn some Korean before coming here. It's just downright weird to profess a love for a certain country and not even want to learn the language.
If she needs companionship or some help, PM me and I'll try to help as much as I can, since I pretty much did the same thing...came to Korea right after high school, went to university at Hanyang U (not International Studies, though) and then started working at my dad's hagwon. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| Scorpion wrote: |
How on earth would any Canadian 18 year old have even heard of K-op or K-dramas? I have nephews and nieces in Canada. They've never heard of either. I suspect the OP is pulling our leg. What 18 year-old N. American kid (other than a gyopo) is infatuated with Korea?
LOL. |
I've known quite a few Koreaphiles, usually aged between 18-25 and from North America. The whole world ain't like the Maritimes. |
Actually, the bad economy in the US, Korea, and elsewhere the past few years, it sure is now. (The world, I mean.) The economic misery all us ex Maritimers tried desperately to escape is now spread around the world. Looking at other places with admiration at their economic feats and successes is but a memory now. Guess there's still sort of Alberta, except for the insane cost of housing?
Anyhow, with all the young Americans flooding into here the past few years, I'm sure knowledge of Korea and Korean culture is spreading. When I first got here, not many people came to Korea, except for someone from the Maritimes, rural Alabama, or some kid off the farm in Montana that wanted to travel (if they didn't join the army first). I visited some distant family in 2008 in the states (when the conomy was still good just before the crash) and my being in Korea seemed different and odd. Nowadays, not so much. Now more people in many other places have met someone or heard of someone who has gone to Korea.
Sorry, mid morning deskwarming ranting nostalgia for the way things were in Korea. Lol. |
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busanSK2012
Joined: 20 Feb 2013
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Honestly, I asked the Koreans I work with and know and they said to a person to wait a year. Go to university.
Wait and see what the international problem with N Korea turns out to be. I am not being alarmist, but that is what the KOREAN people I talk to say.
My own thoughts? Korea is really ugly and the least appealing country I have every been to or seen. I would say GO if she mentioned any other place! Korea??? So maybe I am prejudiced against it.  |
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busanSK2012
Joined: 20 Feb 2013
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Honestly, I asked the Koreans I work with and know and they said to a person to wait a year. Go to university.
Wait and see what the international problem with N Korea turns out to be. I am not being alarmist, but that is what the KOREAN people I talk to say.
My own thoughts? Korea is really ugly and the least appealing country I have every been to or seen. I would say GO if she mentioned any other place! Korea??? So maybe I am prejudiced against it. |
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createasaurus21
Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Location: Seoul
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javis
Joined: 28 Feb 2013
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| Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
Well, it really depends on what you major in. Majoring in Hungarian might be a dodgy call, pursuing a degree in say, engineering, while studying in Hungary less so.
Besides, if on September 10th, 2001 you told people you were studying Urdu, Pashtun, Farsi, or Kurdish they'd laugh at you and say that that was useless for getting a job.
The world can change on a dime.
The bottom line is the OP's niece is old enough to vote and join the army. In the end you can either stand by her or naysay her the entire way and never believe that she is anything more than a "little girl". By all means state your concerns, but always support her. If you support her, either way things go, she'll appreciate you. Naysay her, and if she succeeds, she will remember your lack of support for the rest of her life. Is that worth it when it comes to family? |
And it would still be incredibly stupid to spend your entire undergrad in Pakistan. |
It really depends on what field you're looking to get into. If it's intelligence then fluency in Urdu can net you a $35,000 signing bonus:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-04-19-language_N.htm
The tricky thing in getting an undergrad there is that the more time you spend abroad the harder it is to pass a background check. Anyone who is studying in Pakistan with an eye to getting into intelligence would be wise to keep written records and receipts of everything they do because those will all be looked into. |
There are indeed a lot of opportunities out there for Urdu speakers, and not all of them involve people shooting at you.
Surprisingly, financial considerations and issues related to alcohol consumption cause more unfavorable adjudications for security clearances than cases of foreign influence. That said, investigators are supposed to take a whole person approach to the process, and there are often mitigating factors for problems that could seem to be a dealbreak at first glance. Anyway, I don't think that the OP's neice is looking to work at a three letter agency now. Who knows how her goals will change once she has some real contact with Korea beyond Youtube, though. |
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