So a little while back we had Leigh on the program
Answering questions about her experiences as a student in Korea
If you didn't see that TL;DR you can check it out here
So Leigh is back
And we are here to pick her brain
About student housing options
Oh boy
Doesn't that sound exciting?
That sounds so exciting
I know.
So for those of you that don't know
I'm intern Leigh and I've been living in Korea for about two and a half years
And I've been a student the whole time I've been here
You're smart
You should join the team
That sounds like fun, can I do that?
I think so
We should wear matching hats
Let's do that
*gasp*
Ok, so first question I have for you
When you first came to live in Korea
Were you applying for a university?
I did a language program
Which is not exactly in university
It's just a language center affiliated with a university
So I wasn't actually a direct enroll student
And I wasn't an exchange student
Which meant that I came to Korea without knowing where I was going to live
So I thought that is you come to Korea
As a language exchange student
You automatically were in university and getting a dorm
Some of them do have dorm options
for language exchange students
but the problem is that the waiting list for dorms
Is really really long
Like nine months long
Nine months to a year
So you're like "My program is finished" and they're like "Congratulations, you can use our dorm"
That's exactly what happened to me
In fact not a lot of language programs even offer dorm accommodation for their students
Some do and some don't
Would you get a dorm option if you're coming to Korea, what program would you be in?
Foreign students that come usually through exchange programs
or as direct enrolls in actual Korean universities
They have priority in the dorms because you're from out of the country
So it's very very likely that you will get a place in a Korean dorm
So then have you ever lived in a dorm on Korean campus?
Yes I have.
Was dorm life super awesome party time adventurous?
No.
It was exciting for me because when I was in university back in the States
I actually never lived in a dorm dorm dorm
Neither did I
I lived with my parents in the basement
Oh... I lived in a n apartment
The dorms are a little bit different
than what they are in the US
Explain
for starters
Most of the dorms are actually fours students to a single room
Also there are a lot of rules in dorms
That I really didn't like
Such as?
So... dorms in the US usually don't have curfews
Actually some of them do
But dorms in Korea almost all of them have curfews
You know what?
I knew that
I didn't know that till I lived in a dorm
Well I knew that because I ran into some exchange students
And they'd be like "I gotta head back
Because I'll locked out of my dorm
And I'm like "it's 11:30"
Like at midnight
Even on weekends? [L]Yes.
And you have to sign out to stay out of the dorm late
Or to stay overnight
So if you want to go home and stay with your family for the weekend
You have to sign up for permission to do that ahead of the time
You only get a certain amount of times a week
So what happens if it's your b-day weekend
You want to go visit your friends in another city in Korea
And you want to party with them
Are you actually allowed to stay past your curfew?
You are but you gotta sign up for that
So what happens if you don't sign up?
You lose points.
What happens if you lose points?
You get evicted
And then Gryffindor is like 3 points minus from
Wait, you get evicted?
That's worse than Hogwarts, wait a second.
Most dorms have a 10 point system
You can earn points for good things
Like going to meetings
Ok, this is Hogwats
Yes. House points
They are called house points? [L]Yes
They are
And you lose points for things like coming in after curfew
And making the security guard to let you in
Oh so you have a security guard
Oh yeah, you have cards, cameras and security guards
And everything
They monitor all that stuff
You're definitely not allowed to have guests in your dorm
Of any gender
Same gender, different gender
What about your mom and dad? [L]Nope
What?
Moving day only.
I was actually really surprised. The first Korean dorm I was in
There was not even a space
For meeting other students
That were in the dorm
So if you have a group project, there is nowhere for you to go.
There are two or three spaces, all of the corners of the dorm are just crowded
Korean people on their phones talking to their boyfriends
There is nowhere for you to meet
*Harry Potter theme* If only there was a room of requirement available
No. That would have been the best.
Ok, so then if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend
in Korea
You cannot have sexy times with them in your dorm [L] No. No
Not gonna happen
Parents watching this video will be like "Yeay"
"I'm sending my kids to a dorm"
"In the university"
I actually think that's why they have so many rules and that kind of stuff
Instead of an............... system there
You have dorm rules
That help to make sure your kid doesn't go super hog-wild
So can you bring alcohol back to your room?
Alcohol is not allowed
Do they check your bags?
Yes
Really?!
They check for cleanliness as well
So they just kick in the dorm "citizens arrest"
And they check your room to see if there are bottles of soju
Why these underpants haven't been cleaned in a week?
C'mon Leigh!
People do it
Ok, so they do.
People do it. And if you're caught you lose points
Ok.
There is CCTV everywhere
Really?!
So when you walk in with a bottle of soju it's like *alarm&robot sounds*
So essentially all the old techniques
Not that I'm giving you guys any ideas here
But those techniques off taking an orange juice bottle
Dumping out half of it
And filling it with vodka
And being like "It's orange juice"
That's how you have to smuggle things in
But where are you going to drink it?
There is no co-ed spaces man!
Drink it in your room
Alone
Sad.
a horrible plan
Are there any more things that can cause you to loose points?
Cause right now the dorm life is sounding very dry
You're actually not supposed to have food either
Is there a mini fridge in your dorm?
Some of them do
I had a friend that stayed at Ewha graduate dorm
They didn't have curfews
And they had a kitchen facility
Everything was there
But in my dorm we were only supposed to have snacks
So there are signs everywhere
NO FOOD
But you can have a kettle in your room [L] No
No hot-plates no microwaves
no mini-fridges
Nothing.
So then did you have an area where you could cook sth?
Like you were on the hall...way...en... oh...
They had a tiny corner with a hot water dispenser
And that was it.
So you could go an d be like " I have tea"
And you pour vodka in coz you can't anything
Some dorms might have different rules
But frankly
A lot of people that I met on the streets in Korea
Most people complained to me about the curfew
About not having people in the room
I know one person I met
Said that there was a meeting area in the university
Where you came downstairs and you signed in people
As in this is a .prison ...
Exactly so you go downstairs
And be like "Hello boyfriend"
I put some padding in the bra for you. Some cigarettes
They give you a cake and inside the cake there is a vodka bottle
And then ramyun pre-cooked for them
What is this?
Yeah, so I guess it seems like it's pretty tough to live on dorm
It does
It seems like all the undergraduate dorms are like that
So where do you eat, by the way, if you don't eat in your room
There is a cafeteria connected to most of those kinds of dorms
Is it a Korean university cafeteria? [L]Yes
I've been to those before
Oh man, they're pretty special
Special like good or bad?
What would you say one big pro of living on dorms?
They are so, so cheap.
And you're surrounded by other Korean students
And you have the advantage of being able to roll out of bed
And walk 10 minutes to class
And the big cons would be...
Lots of rules
Think: Hogwarts. That's all we need to do
There's wizards everywhere, but there is CCTV watching everything you do
Snape is always around the corner
He is going to catch you
He is going to report you
And he is going to go
Five points form Gryffindor
Detention!
That was your Snape face? [M]Yeah
Ok, so let's say you do not get an on-campus dorm [L]Yeah
What are your other options then?
When I first came here I lived in what is called a goshiwon
And it's a dorm-style living
But it's just cheap housing
And it's off campus
A while ago we did a couple of TL;DRs on housing in Korea
And we talked a lot about things like key money
Which if you don't know what we're talking about
You should check out the TL;DRs to know what we're talking about
So goshiwon does not have things like key money, right?
No. most of them do not
And there are two main styles
Some of them have bathrooms that are inside the room
Like really small toilet & shower facilities
Some of them have shared toilets& shower facilities
Would it be cheaper if it's a shared one?
Absolutely
So this is privately run
This isn't associated with the university
No. not at all
But it's usually, the majority of the time students
because it's cheap
yes. It's generally students
But you could have some dirty, pervy student that shares the shower with you
Who spits in and you're like...
We had somebody steal all of our shower stuff
That was the thing. The first goshiwon I lived in
it was clean and it was really nice
And you'll notice there is a huge range in quality of goshiwons
But I was in a very very nice one
And somebody was a klepto
And just kept stealing weird shower stuff
Like I had salt scrub, they'd steal the salt scrub
They stole my italy towel
Which is used to get dead skin off
who steals someone else's?
That's gross
Why would they want somebody else's Italy towel?
because they are cloning you
Leigh, they are cloning you. It's obvious
This is what it is
They got all of your skin cells
Skin cell Leigh
Puts the lotion on the skin
Ok, so it sounds like a pretty good deal. It's not that expensive
But dorms are usually cheaper because they are shared facility
Whilst most goshiwons are single rooms
You have no roommates
Ok, that sounds like a pro then, if you're looking for privacy and that kind of stuff
[L]Sexy times [M]Oh boy. Sexy times with your studying book and vodka-tea
Except the problem is that the walls are really really thin
So if you do have sexy times
Everybody can hear it
So then you leave
And everyone in the hallway going like
high-fiving you
Yeah. And I lived next to this lady that liked to sing in the mornings
She was really nice
But she would sing every morning
She'd wake up at 5Am and she'd be like
*singing something*
I wanna sleeeeeep
You're like "I guess it's five"
In a nutshell
You're applying for a University
You're allowed to live in dorm because maybe you are at the top of that list
You got it, you're coming to Korea
You know where your dorm is
But if you're going to stay at a goshiwon
Then you can't buy in advance, right?
right
You have to come here
And find it, right?
Yeah, maybe you could find some websites with some of them online
Maybe call and arrange something
But you wouldn't want to
you really want to see it in person
You need to put your eyeball on that room
Ok, so let's give people some practical advice
If they are not being able to stay in the dorm
First thing I would suggest
Of the get-go is to book a guesthouse
Yes
That way you think about the neighborhood,
you might want to go into. You book a guest house
And then you can start searching for a permanent place to live, right?
Especially if you've never been here before
and you've never seen your school
I would Really recommend that
How did you find this place?
Did you talked to other students on campus?
Did you get advice?
what did you do?
There are a lot of places around campus because I was in a student neighborhood
And my classmates kept saying
Don't stay here, it's dirty
Don't stay here it's too expensive
Don't stay here, it's really really far away
But I actually found my place because I went to my school's dorm
And I said "do you have any recommendations of goshiwons that are really really nice?"
So they sent me a list
And I picked the most expensive one
because I figured the most expensive ones would be the cleaner ones
Is that correct?
It was correct
the benefit of a goshiwon is that
You don't need any deposit money at all
And you can get them in pretty much any neighborhood you want
And you have your own kitchen
You have your own kitchen
You cook if you want to
So you can really live there and study and sleep there on a budget
Ok, so if you need to be more independent
You don't want to deal with all these rules
and stuff like that
You're going to go for a goshiwon
Yes. There is actually another housing option that I think we don't really have time to talk about here
Is hasukjip. It is very similar to homestaying
I guess we'll talk a little bit more about them in the blog post
Also because there is so much to talk about right now
Leigh is going to put a lot more details into the blog post
Such as[L]What the cheapest neighborhoods in Seoul are
Some tips what you should be looking for when you're trying to find those places
Another housing option
Ok, so a lot of you guys plan on moving to Korea for school
and a lot of you are already living in Korea for school
So I think this is an awesome opportunity
To go to the comment section
And leave advice to other people
Whether you're already here and you want to share your advice about
your good and bad experiences
Or if you've got questions. Let's all help each other out to answer them
So that's it for this week's TL;DR
Last week we talked about people living with their parents
And how long they stay
And we got some interesting comments form you, guys
Omnia Kadorah was saying that Arab parents never kick them out of the house
That's pretty cool
She also said that even if you move out
They don't usually want you to move out
but if they do, they still support financially
Which sounds pretty sweet as well
And she said that usually they actually own their house
So there is no such thing as "under my house" or paying rules
They pay for everything anyway
Awesome
And now. A poem from Henry
Dad wants me out
Mum wants me to stay
I don't have money
So life is going Mama's way
Ssecrecy from Finland
It's an awesome name
That's an awesome name
I feel so Slytherin right there
like ssecrecy~
they said that life in Finland is a complete opposite
where people usually move out as soon as possible
Even when they're 15 or 16
She said by 20 or 25 nobody lives with their parents anymore
because university is free
And they said that you move out
And you get campus housing
And so you're like "Why not?"
Government pays for that
Let's move to Finland
You get student allowance too
You get student allowance? [M]Yeah
... secret Finland
You said "Let's move to Finland", Finland is like "We don't want you"
We're like "Oh... Let's move back to Korea, then"
There are doshiwons
goshiwon gosiwon goshiwon
Doshirak is a box you that you shake up
And I keep ... [L]GOoooooo Siwon!
Awesome. Goooooo Siwon! I will never forget it now