QS Uni World Ranking Interview Truthometer Ver I +White Tiger

After my usual business, I was washing my hands thoroughly in the men’s washroom when I suddenly heard this loud bang from close range. My first reaction was that I thought Korea was under attack and I was one of the very first victims. I had heard that people felt numb seconds into an explosion. I was numb. I heard the “teeeeee” sound ringing inside, similar to the one you got when you played Call of Duty and a bomb dropped nearby. Yet with all this happening in split seconds, I still had my glasses (* coughs* spectacles) hadn’t blown off and I had near perfect vision in front of me. Then my brain registered something; I had just heard the loudest fart ever. If I had a medal of honor inside my pocket, I would have given him the just that, clapped my hands, patted his back and given him a victory lap (after much denial from his part of course. He would have gone “ohhh that was nothing” waving his hands “you should I have listened to the one last week”). Cafeteria food is making people do extraordinary things in mundane places.

I think much of or almost all of violence related imagination that my brain is now going through is likely because of the book I recently got hold of. The White Tiger was nothing that I had expected. The first few pages was intriguing, and then it got even more intriguing, then it got slightly intriguing, then I couldn’t stop grinning and laughing (yes inside the study. People were staring at me to say “would you mind?”) and then I hated the book. One word. “F@#king Nepali”…I mean two.. sprang out of nowhere and I was left wondering if the author directed these very same words at me. That’s how focused I was. But conscience took over and the word made perfect sense in the context and I paced up again. With “Nepali” proliferated throughout the text, the story was basically sprinkled with hot mirchi masala rawness, black cardamom darkness but at the same time had the soothing taste of beer. I know that makes absolutely no sense inserting beer here but I couldn’t think of anything more soothing then crispy golden malt beer. These indian writers have a typical way of hooking you up for the night as I went all out. By the end, I was satisfied as ever. Although, talking about New Delhi brought back memories from not too long ago but I seemed to have moved on. cheers to me.

Moving on the core topic of the blog, I got this call from Jose about a month or so.

Me: “hello”

Jose: “heyyy, how are you?” in typical Jose fashion

Me:”Wow, I haven’t seen your ass for a while”

Jose: *silence*…..(hahaha)

Me: “I am kidding, whats up?” I knew something was really up.

Jose: “You know how I work for…crap crap..more crap. You know the school got ranked around 37(?) in QS world rankings right? So those people want to interview a foreign student studying here. Anddd I thought you might like to give it.”

Me: “sure”

Jose: “The thing is you have to be honest about the school” oohhh this was going to be tasty. But then she added, “and has to make the school look good” my enthusiasm took a dip.

Me: “ soo you are asking me to be honest and at the same time make school look shiny?”

Jose: *giggles* “yep”

Me: “soo you don’t see there’s something wrong?”

Jose: “yes or no?..they needed an actual foreigner studying here and first thing that popped up was you.”

Me: “alright, I will try”

Jose: “I will tell them you said YES. See ya”

So I was half expecting people with cameras would come looking for me but all I got was an email stating “please answer the following questions”

Exams again. Of course, I am exaggerating a bit here but you get what I mean.

The questions were plainly simple and had more to do with seoul than the uni itself.

Where are you from originally?

What courses are you taking, and when did you first move to Seoul

How does the city compare to other places you’ve lived? What is different about it?

Would you say this is a good place to be a student? Why?

Is there anything you dislike about living here?

When taking time out of studies, what are your favorite activities to do in the city?

Where are your favorite places, indoors or out?

How do you travel around the city?

If you had to describe Seoul in three words, what would they be?

What would be your top recommendations for people new to the city?

So here I was faced with an army of questions aiming spears and guns and rifles and fists and ninja cats at me. Had to be really careful plus diplomatic to answer them. However, this blog gives me the opportunity to be truthful. Additionally, I could add my own comments without the fear of censorship. So here goes:

Regarding home: (easy) ..skip..you cant get this wrong can you?

Regarding when I moved: irrelevant

Regarding how the city compared to where I lived-difference:

It is obvious. For all of my life I have lived in a different culture, got accustomed to a specific set of rules and experienced the same flavors. As expected, coming to Korea meant a total change in lifestyle.

The difficult hurdle here lies on the language and the food. Once you get used to both of them, I think there is a level of comfort that you experience that is hard to come by back home. Basics such as clean water, electricity and communication are still a thing of struggle there and to come to Korea and have plentiful actually spoils you.

I will probably miss Korea badly if I go back home.

Truthometer:100%  Although, I still seem to fall flat on my ass while trying to climb a solid Korean brick language wall. It goes without saying that students who are fluent in Korean have been able to live better and smarter in so many ways…annddd yes I just love the city.

Regarding the place to be a “good” place to study: Very tricky one indeed.

Koreans here are highly competitive and this kind of helps you to improve and get to your best. However, the pressure can get too much at times.

The resources that school has to offer are just amazing. We have one of the biggest libraries in Korea, the most equipped labs, the faculty is top notch and the level of research that’s going inside the school is world class. As I am more interested in my field, the technical collaboration between Universities here and the multinational Korean companies is something I have been closely following. The closer companies work with Universities, the better. Opportunities for post- graduation work are always something that students will be looking for, so these kinds of collaboration only help to provide that platform.

Truthometer: 70% Resources that the school provides is brilliant. With this fee structure, there are hardly any school in Korea or Asia or US that can provide this level of facility.

Unfortunately, if you get into SNU you will be up against the Crème de la Crème of Korean students, sooo I don’t know. Its just a losing battlefield here. What I have seen is a total change in scenario from BNKS. International students have a hard time getting “sources”, “papers”, past homework assignments and so on. Plus a large portion of the courses are only available in Korean. Some english classes dont sound too english.

Looks like the blog is extending more than i would have liked. I will leave this blog to this. I will be back with the second part very soon. Time to call pimpli and release now non existent stress.