Review
My Name is Sardorbek and I am regular student of Korea university business school. Last year I decided to attend to the exchange program which was offered by KUBS and started to prepare necessary documents. Although it doesn’t take too much time to get a transcript and statement of purpose, it takes a while to be well prepared and get accepted for the program. The main reason for this is students should have 3.0 or above GPA in order to be able to apply for the exchange student program. After I had 3.0 GPA or higher and took IELTS to prove my English language ability.
Moreover, since I am an international student at KUBS, in order to be able to apply for exchange student program, I had to know Korean too. So, I studied Korean language during my studies at KU.
After I made sure that all necessary documents are ready, I filled online application and sent all documents to the office in the end of July and went to interview in the beginning of August. In the first step of interview we were asked questions in English, while in the second step I took in Korean. Since I knew little Korean it was tough to answer to questions. However, professors considered that I am foreigner and gave me simpler questions.
In the end of September I got email from the university which I was planning to go and they asked me for additional documents which will be needed to issue acceptance letter. By the end o of November I got my visa to the United States and bought airplane ticket.
After I finished my fall semester at KUBS, in the end of December I flew to the United States. First I flew to New York City and there I change my flight to Orlando (Florida). My buddy who was assigned to help me by University Florida came to meet me to the Orlando airport and we together departed to small college town of Gainesville. It was my first time to be in the Unites States and American colleges. University of Florida (UF) was huge and there were many students around campus. Although it was little difficult to adapt to new environment in the beginning, Global Gator Guides helped me a lot to learn everything not only at University of Florida, but also in the US. I made many friends at the university from all around the world.
Moreover, I liked teaching style of US colleges. For example, professors are very friendly and they always want to be shown not as a teacher, but as a friend who has more experience and ready to teach us.
Before going to the US I faced some difficulties with finding housing and I thought a lot whether I should stay in dormitory or of campus. University of Florida housing department helped me to solve this problem and they explained me housing system in Gainesville. For example, the least period of time renting a house is six months, but semester ends just in four months. Also, most of housing apartments were far from the campus and students have to take a bus in order to get to the college. So, I decided to stay one of four halls of University of Florida and it was called Weaver hall. The University arranged us two bedroom rooms where one international student stays with American students. I really liked this idea because it helped me a lot to learn about local culture and traditions. Especially, my roommate taught me how to watch American football and how to play Lacrosse which is not well known sport in other parts of the world. Also, there was launch in the first floor of our dormitory where we could meet many new students who were exchange students like me or American students who came to study.
In the first week of the semester I used only Wi-Fi and after that five exchange students bought family plan Sim cards. I really liked that kind of family type of cell phones because if you use this kind of plans you can buy sim cards in very affordable prices.
Taking courses was easy with help of international office of Korea University. We just chose courses which we liked and they sent that list of courses to the exchange university and when we went to UF, they said that there wasn’t any problem with course registration. Two of my four classes were online and we had to do everything online such as completing tasks and taking exams. Also, if you really want you attend that class or watch recorded video. Another two classes which I took at University of Florida were Management strategy and Intermediate accounting 2. The management strategy class was kind of small with students of 25, but we had very interesting class and presentations. The professor was experienced employee of large firm, so he gave us many real life examples.
One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to go to exchange was travelling and I did travel a lot during my time in the US. For example I visited to Miami, Key West, St Petersburg which are the best resort cities of Florida. Out of Florida I visited to Georgia, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. I really enjoyed and I am pretty sure that this exchange time changed my life a lot to positive way.
Finally, at the end of the semester, University of Florida department which works with exchange students invited all of exchange students to meeting where we could give questions which interested us or ask some staffs. I really liked the way they behaved with students and asked students what kind of problems students had during their stay in UF, so they can avoid those problems in the future with incoming exchange students.
I hope that things I have experienced, problems I have faced as an exchange students will help someone who is planning to go to exchange. If at least one student finds this review helpful, I would be really happy.