My parents have now been in Korea for about a week, and have proven themselves quite adventuresome. While I'm at work, they'll be out and about exploring the large city of Seoul. This previous weekend we all went to
Busan via Korea's high speed rail, the
KTX. The
KTX is a great way to get to the complete other side of the country in around 3 hours time, with trains running just about every 20, or so, minutes.
Busan proved to be just as interesting the second time, and my parents might have even loved it more than I. This is probably because my family started off in Jacksonville, FL, and
Busan has a similar culture to it in some subtle ways. (The most obvious cultural comparison is that they are both cities on the beach) During this past winter, I was wishing I chose
Busan over Seoul. My Korean literature teacher was from
Busan, and I should have listened to her when she said that
Busan has an extremely nice and welcoming culture, because it's true. :) Since it was an off season time for tourism in
Busan we were able to stay at a nice beach front hotel for a reasonable price, which made our short stay even more enjoyable.
I found out a few days ago that I was not only accepted into grad school, but also offered an
assistantship, which means I will be to attend grad school tuition free with a stipend. It worked out nicely to have my parents here to share the good news, as this is probably the best news I could have hoped for. The school is Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta, and the degree I will be working towards a MA in Communications in the department of Moving Images (Film/Video/Media) with a concentration on production. Atlanta has a growing production scene, and the cost of living is considerably lower than other cities with comparable production work, so it will be an excellent place to attend grad school, and I'm excited to meet the faculty whom I will be working with.
GSU offers many great resources where I will be able to build on my previous experiences and create some interesting projects in the process of learning, and the faculty is composed both of research and production oriented members, which I find important. I've been spending a lot of my time in Seoul just doing some basic research, so I look forward to trying to apply much of the knowledge I have been reading about.
The transition from Korea to Atlanta will be an extremely quick one, but it will be a satisfying feeling knowing where my next step will be once my time in Seoul is over. And attending grad school this year seems to be the perfect time for me to gain more knowledge that will help me continue my career and potentially broaden my horizons. I finish teaching in mid August, and the grad program also starts in mid August, so these next few months I will be working towards a smooth transition. On a side note,
GSU has a great library, so it will be fun to have that amount of resources at my fingertips again. I did not see myself going back to school so quickly after graduating from college, but after teaching in Korea, I really value the importance of education more, and am extremely excited about continuing my education at a University.
