Empathy Skills

After being in Seoul for only 21 days, I cannot believe how many new friends I have, not only from SNU but from many different places. We have made friends in different ways and at different times. Personally I have met students from SNU at a party that our group went to, during class with our other SNU students, at the club, and even on the metro (subway)! I feel as though all these people that I have met have impacted me and my thoughts of the people in the country. People in South Korea are very friendly, and places where I did not think that I would meet friends, I did. I am a shy person, especially in a comfortable environment with new people. If the situation is uncomfortable, I would just let go, or be very open and ecstatic for no reason, and many of the times that is how I meet people. South Korea was not necessarily an uncomfortable environment, but it was new to me, so by acting a certain way I made myself feel more comfortable with the situations I was in.

At the University of Michigan there are many international students from all over the world. There is a great population of students from Korea and a couple other Asian countries at our school. I feel as though it depends on the person's personality and shyness to see whether or not that person will make friends wherever they will go. I am a shy person in many situations but if I want to meet someone new I will definitely try to jump outside of my comfort zone to meet the person, especially in a country in which I am in for a short period of time. But who knows, maybe if I would like to come back some day I would have all of the friends I made to help support me when I came back. I am not entirely sure if the experience of being an international student coming to SNU and an international student at UM is the same, but I feel like the situations can relate in many ways because the meeting of people relies on a persons comfort zone and personality.