Yonsei University

There's a "Grand Mart" at Shinchon Subway Station that is much cheaper than the "Rainbow Supermarket" at the East Gate. Don't go to Department Stores to shop for clothes, they are extremely expensive and they sometimes charge twice or even three times the price for Western labels. Go to Dongdaemun Night Market instead. - Great bargains!

Don't miss going to Gyeongju, the old Emperor's city in the south of Korea. It's beautiful!

I definitely came to Korea in order to improve my Korean language skills and therefore also took the daily Korean language class (4-6 pm). Although it was very demanding (we had exams almost every 2 weeks and even had to write a Korean diary) it surely helped to improve my Korean a lot. Now I don't have any problems communicating in Korean. For absolute Korean beginners it might be very hard to learn the language. A lot of my friends dropped the course shortly before or after the midterms. However, if you attend the class until the very end you'll clearly see that you'll get by everyday life and the Korean people around appreciate your efforts in speaking Korean a lot.

Although everybody had to get used to the quite small rooms and the fact that you even have to share them with a person you didn't know before, the I-House is a very good choice for 1st semester people. Of course you don't get too much privacy, but after all it's only for a semester and you shouldn't be staying in your room too much anyway ;-)

There are 3 areas I very much recommend: 1) Shinchon (the university area): lots of bars, pubs, karaoke bars and restaurants. All of them are very cheap and you can have great nights out with a big group of people. 2) Hongdae (the area around the Hongik Art University) - great clubs, both HipHop and House music, very recommendable: M2! Great clubbings! 3) Apgujeong (The Beverly Hills of Seoul) - great trendy clubs, beautiful people, good music. Unfortunately a little bit pricey when you're not on the guestlist of these clubbings.