#ksgp 2023

[ehalslrk]

#1 flight tickets and visa

As I mentioned in my last post, the application process for gks is quite long and stressful. As you wait for the results of the first, second and third round, all you wish is to know the final results: Whether you're going or not. And you kind of expect everything will be fine once you know that all the effort and money was not in vain. In reality you only have a few days to celebrate the achievement before another stress period starts. It can be very individual depending on the country you're from and university you will attend but there are probably very few awardees who would consider the following process easy or unproblematic. (I decided to write down the whole process including dates in case it can help anyone in the future.)

After the final results were out on 30.06. it took about a week for NIIED to send us the Invitation letter (NIIED was sending out the emails in an alphabetical order so some people received it in 7 days and some later. Mine came on 10.07.). Following that the procedure depends on your uni. I know that many universities sent out CoAs (Certificate of Acceptance) very promptly and students could start their visa application process almost right away. For me, it took almost a month. But we will get to it later.

First, I received a survey asking me for details regarding my flight ticket. The school you're going to attend first is responsible for buying your ticket, so if you're attending language institute first and it's different from your uni (I think that after 2023 it's the case for only 5 universities), they will be the one to contact you. The survey came on 04.07. and there we questions such as prefered date of departure, prefered airport of departure, etc.

Important thing to note is that you have to depart from your home country, otherwise, the ticket won't be covered. There are also some other rules determined by NIIED such as that the "itinerary must be a direct flight or a flight with the shortest route to Korea (and if there is no direct flight available, the layover should be limited to 30 hours)." Except this, there is a price limit. The costs cannot exceed 1,2 million KRW. These rules can get very illogical in some cases. For example, I come from a very small country that offers no direct flights, but there are two big foreign international airports near our borders (1-2,5 hours by car from my house). No exceptions were allowed in my case, so the ticket I got is from a city that is 4,5 hours away from my home by car (but in my country) and I have to transfer 2 times to board a plane in an international airport that is just 2 hours from my home. The flight will take about 26 hours in total. That means that it will take almost 2 days for me to get to my dormitory. This is not all. I could get a flight from my country with 1 transfer but it was about 500 thousand KRW above the limit. As they refused to make any exceptions, 26 hours with 2 transfers flight was chosen over 14 hours flight with 1 transfer. Funny, right? I find it quite unfair because I know that there were people from countries from which the cheapest flight is way above 1,2 mil KRW and school got them very good tickets (great airline and good transit) ignoring the limit while I got a lowcost airline with 2 transfers. But since I decided to accept the situation rather than make a big deal about it, let's end my rant.

To tell you the truth, I'm okay with taking longer to get there but I'm worried about the transfers and since I'm also taking checked baggage it highers the chances of my baggage getting lost. Please wish me luck. ^^

I know I'm not the only one in bad situation regarding the rules. Some people have troubles with the transit visa and even take much longer than me.

To make it clear, before the university staff purchased the ticket, I got an email for confirmation and only after my failed attempt to compromise did they pay for it and sent it to me. I heard people from a few universities didn't even have a choice. Or there were cases when they asked them to purchase the ticket themselves with a promise to reimburse when they open their account in Korea.

Okay. Enough about tickets. Let's talk about visa.

Because we are a scholarship awardees, NIIED does their best to make the process simpler. We don't have to pay the usual visa application fee nor prove our financial ability to support ourselves. People doing the language programme apply for D-4 visa, exempted apply for either D-2-3 or D-2-7. Documents you need will therefore differ (and can be different also depending on the country you are applying from so check with your embassy), but you generally need the following:

Passport and passport photo (3,5x4,5cm)

NIIED invitation letter

CoA

Document indicating the final level of education (Diploma)

Visa application form

One thing to note, if you come from smaller country, chances are that the visa staff won't know about this scholarship at all. In case they ask you to pay the fee or don't cooperate, print out the Important Notice/Guidelines and show them. Fight for that fee exemption! XD Just make sure you are polite please.

The reason I couldn't apply for visa right away in July was that I didn't yet have CoA. Korea University informed us that we can only get this document after the tuition payment period (although as scholarship students, we technically don't pay, just do so called 0 won registration). After the registration, I got my CoA on 27.7. You need to keep in mind that you have to schedule your appointment for visa application at the embassy in advance. There is a website where you can register online but it wasn't open for my country and I could only schedule the appointment by calling them. I was informed by our embassy that it's okay to call them only 2-4 days in advance so I waited and called them when I received the CoA.

Fast forward, I was left speechless when they told that I should come in 2 weeks with less than 14 calendar days to my departure. That stressed me out so much. The usual period for visa issuance is 14 working days. I contacted the embassy several times to ask for explanation but they repeated that I will get my visa on time and don't have to worry. To give you some background info to understand what was going through my head, I have experience of not receiving my Korean visa on time and having to deal with consequences so this didn't quite help. My ticket was non-refundable and my arrival very tight with the beginning of semester on September 1st.

But whether it was my stubborness that made me contact them several time or they were really that sure that I can get it on time, I got my visa issued in only 3 working days. Yayy!

To not make this article very long I will continue tallking about the Course registration and Orientation in the next article.

[ehalslrk]

gks 2023

The past few months were one of the most stressful but also the most rewarding in my life. I suppose that those of you who come across this post already know what GKS or KGSP is but to briefly introduce it, it is a scholarship from the Korean government for pursuing your Undergraduate, Graduate of Doctoral studies in Korea. After a long preparation and a lo~ng application process I can finally say that I was lucky to pass all three rounds and will enroll in Graduate school of International Studies at Korea University this September.

I decided to write down the process on this blog for future me, but also share it with you in case you are interested in applying in the future :) I will continue to talk about my experience in the upcoming posts as well, so I will be very happy if you decide to follow for more.

I will start with a brief background of mine. I did my Undergraduate studies in a major called Business Korean. Basically, what it means is that I studied both Korean and Business at the same time and once acquiring a certain level of Korean I had classes on Korean in Business environment. My school offered a Graduate program but it focused only on Korean (not the business part) and since for my future career I wanted to continue studying business while maintaining a good level of Korean, studying the major in Korea was the perfect option for me.

While doing my Undergraduate studies I had the opportunity to go to Korea and study there as an exchange student for one semester. I'm not saying I was completely clueless about GKS before but having a roommate who was a GKS scholar gave me a new perspective and it inspired me to apply once I complete my undergraduate studies. Another important factor was that I loved my stay in Korea. Before, I was kind of sceptical whether I would be able to leave my country for such a long time but 6 months went by so quickly and I had so much more I wanted to achieve there. So I came back from Korea, got my first ever working experience in Korean language, acquired Topik 6, finished my undergraduate studies, and.. I didn't apply. haha

To be completely honest, I am not sure what happened there but I kind of missed the timing for preparing for my application while working on my thesis and everything. Well, not completely, I could have still prepared if I worked really hard. But I felt like it is very rushed and I need more time to choose the university and major I want to apply to, gain more certifications, and organize my thoughts regarding my motivation to apply (which is like the most important since motivation letter plays a key role in your application and interview process) I knew I want to study my major in Korea but that's not all it takes to get the scholarship. Applying for GKS takes a lot of time and money and if I invest it all into the process, I wanted to do it right. I decided to take one more year to deeply think about it all and start preparing all the necessary documents.

I had two options for my upcoming year. I could find a job and work to gain more experience and money that would come handy when applying. Or I could study a major to keep my student status and broaden my horizons in the field a bit more.

I decided to go for the latter and enrolled in my graduate studies in Economic Diplomacy in my country. I also did one online Korean language summer program and gained my English proficiency certificate (which can give you a lot of plus points and is also a requirement for some majors if you are not from an english speaking country as me).

So as you already know, I got the scholarship and will go to Korea, therefore I have to leave my study here but I am so~ grateful for the past year and everything I learned in the process. My school allowed me to interrupt my studies for 2 years since I got the scholarship and I can possibly finish my 1 year after I graduate in Korea and have 2 degrees (will think about this possibility a bit more, right now it sounds too scary).

But what I want to say, this one year was really precious experience and I do not regret it at all. I know that there are many GKS applicants who fail on their first try and have a hard time trying to figure out what to do and whether they should apply again or not. It is nice to pass on the first try but rejection can be a great opportunity to work on your shortcomings, and especially on your Korean language skills (there is always something to improve there whether you are a complete beginner or advanced). Also, it can be an opportunity to think through what you think is the best for you in terms of the major and university choice. But I will get to this topic in one of my upcoming post.