Review on the 'good' scholarships offered in South Korea

Most people want to know if there are any good scholarships offered in South Korea so for clarification I will do {Q} and {A} blog.

Q: Are there GOOD scholarships in Korea?

A: yes, there are many scholarships offered in South Korea. The good scholarships are fully funded type of scholarships. One good example is the Korean government scholarship. This is the best since it's fully funded with a two way air-ticket from/to student's country of residence and a health insurance too. If you get the government scholarship, you pay nothing. However, the Korean Government Scholarship (KGSP) has ONE requirement: passing Korean Language Proficiency Test (TOPIK level 3 or 4, you will get all information from the time of applying). 

Q: Where to get the forms?

A: South Korean Embassy in your country. (Information also available on Korean Government Scholarship websites)

Q: Do you need to pay any processing fees etc.? 

A: I may only say yes on your side to process your passports and get your certifications ready for submission. (I do not know exactly but once you start applying for the scholarship you communicate directly with the coordinators in charge of those scholarships.)

Q: Does knowing Korean help in any way? 

A: I think yes, you may have a better chance to respond to the applications with confidence since you already have interest in Korea by knowing the language.

If lucky then it means your days in language school or in Korean (if you get the scholarship) will be smoother than someone who learns the alphabet or characters from scratch in class.

Enough said about Korean Government Scholarship; yearly they enroll, breakdown of finances, figures and statistics available on the website. No need to think of saving money to cover expenses!!!

Q: Other examples of scholarships sponsored by the Korean government are:

Types of government scholarships:

1. NIIED Scholarship (or popularly known as KGSP) 

2. KOICA Scholarship KOICA or MURD (government workers in developing countries)

Q: is there age limit? Other restrictions?

A: AGE LIMIT, is the main cut off point for the KGSP scholarship. 

Pregnancy test and other health check ups also mandatory during application period. 

The KOICA and MURD scholarships are for sponsoring government workers in selected countries, so the age limit is not really important.

In conclusion:

Q: How many people do they select?

A: They only select a few, in some cases one person per country or two people it all depends on their selection criteria.

This means, chances are slim to get it but it's worth trying!

Q: Other important tips?

A: Please prepare your documents and submit before the deadline. 

AVOID mistakes!!!

Imagine thousands of people applying for the same scholarship and use that to motivate you to meticulously prepare your applications! 

BEST WISHES if you are planning to apply for these scholarships. Please comment or share this info to motivate others.

Culture Shock about Christmas Holiday in Korea

  If you are in Korea or any Asian country I have a question for you; do you enjoy Christmas there? As for me, I do not enjoy Christmas in Korea. If you are not in Asia or Korea, you can imagine how boring it is to be in a quiet home. Especially Christmas time! Korean neighborhoods are so quite. The landlord can give you several warnings if you make noise in your apartment. Even your neighbors whom you haven't seen can leave notices at your door if you play loud music or talk loudly. If one wants to hold a party, they have to rent a facility for that. In Korea if you want the ghetto kind of noise, you just go to the market, shopping malls and clubs. 

 Imagine, the ghetto in me of listening to loud music and even dancing to music from neighbor's parties. I even wonder if Korean families own speakers or amplifiers. Honestly, Korean households are just too quiet for me. This is a culture shocker and others mentioned in previous post.

 I always go to downtown for a Christmas feel. South Korean calendar shows Christmas holiday only on the 25th of December! No boxing day holiday, if 26th of December falls on a working day you just go to work! Luckily this year 26th was a Saturday so we had a day off!  Another shocker is the amount of decorations they put for Christmas you would think it's a week holiday. I am one person who grew up celebrating Christmas from the 19th of December to 2 January kind of festive mood. I miss loud music parties and outdoor braai on fire at home.  Who else miss home Christmas party?

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Please leave a comment.

Review on Research Based Ph.D. Scholarships in South Korea

A research based scholarship for Ph.D. is a full-tuition scholarship offered to International Students to pursue their studies. These are mostly in research based degrees such as Engineering and Biological Sciences.

Ph.D. graduation 22 Feb 2018, Materials Science & Engineering
 @University of Seoul

I will stick to my major, Materials Science and Engineering. I was offered the full-tuition scholarship at University of Seoul from 2015 to 2017 (2 years of course work to obtain 60 credits). Then depending on your Supervisor whom you work with from day one of your admission, you simultaneously conduct research daily whilst doing coursework. In other words, from the day you get enrolled you become fulltime research student until the day of graduation. You also get a living allowance from your Supervisor depending on your ongoing research activities. 

The scholarship package:

1. full tuition by the university

2. Living allowance (depending on the projects in your laboratory)

*if  project funding is low then your living expense allowance will be low, why? There is no way Professor can support you if there is no funding.

In such cases, you need a BACK UP somewhere somehow because cost of living in Seoul is so high. Minimum monthly expenses on tightest budget would be 700,000 won.

This scholarship type is best if your Supervisor has good funding, if not it's a real headache to survive on it because you cannot do part-times here in Korea, it's rare to find one especially for African people.

I also discussed my journey on this link here

Please leave some comments and share this info too. Thank you!

Reviewing the 'so-so'/partial scholarships offered in South Korea

The truth about so-so scholarships/partial scholarships. I  titled this blog 'the so-so scholarships' because these are not the best scholarship options since they are partially funded. 

Master's Degree graduation at Keimyung University 8. 2014 (KISS scholarship)

If your family has to sell an asset to send you to study on this type of scholarship don't even bother. Honestly, you will forever need money from home. You can't work at all, though some people illegally do so, but when caught the fine is very big. I'm talking of more than $1000. Korea is not like Europe or America where you can work to sponsor your studies and family at home so don't give your family unnecessary headache to sponsor your studies in Korea. It's even much better to get a diploma in your country than to come and struggle financially for a Korean degree that you are not certain you will get it. 

The so-so scholarships are for people who can afford:

* to pay to and fro air-ticket

* to pay living expenses monthly for the whole duration of study (~$700 to $1000 per month), but the immigration set up some figures depending on cost of living in South Korea.

*to pay monthly health insurances 

*to top up tuition as discounted by university if you meet the criteria.

*sometimes it can be good that you get full tuition, dormitory and a little living allowance which requires a backup. I was on such scholarship it wasn't easy to survive on that small amount. I reviewed this type of scholarship here.

Which criteria?

* Korean language proficiency, by the student, level 3, level 4, level 5, level 6

The higher the TOPIK score the higher the tuition waiver for example for level 3 you get 40% discount, level 4 you get 50% discount, level 5 you get 80% discount and level 6 you get 100% discount.

Where to find such scholarships?

*On university websites, just click on international admission scholarships icon on any Korean University site, if they OFFER any, you will definitely see this type of scholarship. N.B you need a backup plan for this kind of scholarship! It's also difficult to work and study to raise funds and in most cases it is prohibited do work on student visa as I mentioned above.

This information might be helpful to someone so please share the information to those interested in studying in Korea. The second part to scholarship reviews is still in the drafts and I will publish asap. Wishing you a joyous Christmas holiday. 

Please leave some comments or questions! Thank you.

Culture shock in Korea - cross-culture awareness tag

Today I will share some culture shockers in South Korea. Disclaimer: these may not shock you or shock you depending on your background. This post is for culture awareness and nothing else. Let me just list them down without wasting time:

(1). Removing shoes when you enter the House, some traditional restaurants too and some facilities. You just have to remove your shoes at the door as you enter the house. Early days I used to forget to remove shoes but now I'm pro at removing shoes at the door. It actually keeps the floors cleaner.

Leave the shoes at the door!

(2). No hand shakes for greeting just bow and greet though some people believe in handshakes so you only give handshakes to the those interested in them.

(3). Sleeping on the floor, most people prefer sleeping on the floor and most families do not have beds, not that they do not afford them but because of the health benefits of sleeping on the floor. OK!

(4). Warm floors; At least the floors will be warm in winter.

(5). Make up on the bus or subway, of all the places Korean women/ladies/girls are comfortable to do their make up in public places. 

(6). Kindergarten for dogs just like the way we send our kids to kindergarten here in Korea there are pet kindergarten. Pet maintenance is top notch and very costly too.

Pic 2015 with Mong my friend's dog.

(7). If your dog p--ps in the pavements you clear the mess, I saw many dog-owners clearing the mess and sometimes I get surprised to see some not clearing it. Review on dogs going to school.

(8). Mandatory army trainings for a certain period 'for all men'

(9). You pay for throwing away furniture or electronic appliances such as fridge, tv. The trick is if you wanna throw away better sell or give away.

(10). In general Korean society is not very judgmental (compared to where I come from) so most women drink alcohol and they really don't understand if you say I just don't drink beer. 

There are many other culture shockers and I will try to share them in next blogs. Thank you for taking your time to read these culture shockers. 

Zero waste lifestyle ruined! My new strategy!

 I can boldly say I am trying to live a zero-waste lifestyle. As you all know it is difficult to completely eliminate non-biodegradable waste from our daily lives, especially now that food take outs are common. At our university we went on a serious buy-take-out week due to sanitizing measures in September to early October. The amount of trash that we generated those weeks was so huge!  For one meal, one would get a plastic bag, plastic spoon wrapped up in plastic, plastic container of the main meal, another one for soup or separate salad, yogurt container and of course biodegradable chopsticks wrapped in paper. Maybe with a picture or pictures you can figure out how much trash we generated in a day. 

Food packaging 'single use items'

Sigh!!! Sad, right? So sad that a 30-minute meal generated this much waste, non-biodegradable! Hmm it's so disturbing. Anyway, in Korea the recycling seems to be efficient and it's rare to find piles of rotten garbage.

Back to my routine during the sanitizing week. Due to daily temperature checkups and all, it was a wise decision to reduce contact tracing by eating at the closest place so I avoided going off-campus but resorted to the 'plastic packed meals'. Though some days I just chose to reduce my carbon print by going home and eat plastic free lunch. 

Every step counts though it would seem insignificant. I later started to seriously plan on reducing my carbon print. It is my responsibility to make a positive impact on the earth for future generations. 

My new strategy towards zerowaste is to always carry reusable shopping bags whenever I go for shopping, refusing excess plastic packaging, carry my own basket when buying fruits and vegetables in the mart, go for bottled products than plastics etc.

I hope you enjoyed reading my ZEROWASTE LIFESTYLE. Please feel free to comment and share any zerowaste lifestyle tips, together we can save the environment.