Hi! I am currently a freshman at UNC Asheville, and I am thinking about transferring. I really love it here, which is the problem. The campus is great and my classes so far are amazing, but because it is a smaller university there are a lot less options for certain departments- one being language. I wanted to learn Korean in college, and my school offers roughly six languages and Korean definitely is not one. There are online options, but not for that particular language. I am torn because I really do like it here, but at the same time I do not want to limit myself from learning a wider variety of things. This school is also inexpensive because I live in the state, so I am worried there would not be another financially feasible alternative or option.
Any advice/insight especially from students who have transferred in the past would be super helpful. Thank you!
In your case, transferring to learn Korean, doesn’t seem worth it. While learning Korean is a worthy aim, there are other ways to do that.
The most obvious one to me is to go to Korea during your summers or after you graduate to teach English. There is a huge demand for native English speakers to teach English in Korea. You could earn bank and pick up Korean language and culture while there –
Here are some ideas for how to do that–
SMOE Korea - SMOE stands for Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Its teaching program is highly coveted because jobs are located in the dynamic capital city. The program, established since 2005, aims to have a native English speaker in every public school.
EPIK Teaching - EPIK stands for English Program in Korea. It’s sponsored by the Korean government and it places teachers in public schools throughout the country.
GEPIK Jobs - In short, GEPIK stand for the Gyeonggi-do school division’s English teaching program. Like EPIK and SMOE Korea, jobs with GEPIK are government contracts. Teachers work at one base school in Seoul’s “satellite” cities.
Other common ESL jobs in Korea - There are many more job opportunities in the ESL market in this Asian tiger. Teaching English in Korea also includes educating students at hagwons or private language schools, teaching classes at universities, and tutoring business people and adults one-on-one.
Duolingo. See if you can meet any Korean students at your school to practice with (I had a friend in college who met with a student from Japan weekly - they chatted 30 minutes in Japanese and 30 minutes in English). Does your school have any study abroad options?
I agree with the other posters. You love your school. Why change for that one reason when there are alternatives?