2012 EISC Session I Participant: Lois Yeom

University of Maryland, College Park, USA



Having spent the majority of the night before working on a project, I woke up groggy on a May Monday already dreading the final exams that I would be taking in a few days. Following my morning routine of checking my email before heading out to class, I opened my inbox and skimmed over the list of unread emails. My mind was soon wide-awake as my eyes read and re-read a particularly startling subject line: “Ewha summer scholarship”. After finally clicking open the email, calling my mother, and updating my facebook status about the good news, I could only imagine what experiences Korea had in store for me.



The first experience I had at Ewha is one I will never forget. I was all eyes and ears as my aunt drove me down the main road toward her alma mater. After taking in all the colors and sounds lining the sides of the street, I was finally at the front gates of Ewha Woman’s University. I had been to Korea once before, but I was still a child then and had obediently followed my elders around the country during my short stay. Three years later as an independent young woman, I felt ready and excited to meet new people and experience new things while standing at the gates of Korea’s finest school for women.



The atmosphere at Ewha International Summer College (EISC) is one that allows students to easily befriend each other. The girls I met and ate lunch with at the opening ceremony became my second family while in Korea and even back home, as we communicate with each other almost daily. Together, we ventured all over Seoul, and attended the various field trips the program had to offer. One of the most memorable field trips I attended was a trip to the House of Sharing, a home for Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. I had read about these women before, but actually meeting them and hearing their stories was an emotional and unforgettable experience.



Another thing I could only do at Ewha was to learn from Professor Andrei Lankov, one of the world’s leading experts on North Korea. I had come to Korea already having learned much about the human rights crisis in North Korea, but confused and unknowledgeable about the country’s political characteristics. Under Professor Lankov’s intensive guidance, I became extremely well informed about how North Korea came to be how it is today, and thus my understanding