By: Alex Honeycutt
Boram Hwang is a senior double majoring in psychology and business administration. She is from South Korea and her home university is Ajou University.
Q: What has been your favorite Bellarmine event you have attended so far this semester?
A: I enjoyed both the exchange student orientation and the freshmen orientation. I had a freshmen orientation when I was freshmen in my home university, but it’s totally different there. When you are over 19, you can drink alcohol in South Korea, so we usually go somewhere for two or three days depending on your major, play games and drink alcohol with people who are in other years. That’s why freshmen orientation in Bellarmine was quite interesting to me.
Q: What do you miss most about home?
A: I miss my dog a lot. I adopted her six years ago and was the person to take care of her. My family is taking care of my dog now, but I still worry about her.
Q: What has been your favorite U.S. city you have visited?
A: I love New York. There were so many things to enjoy, like all of the different museums, restaurants, cafes and shops. I was surprised at how they preserve specific events in a museum to remember it. When I went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, I was impressed that the museum shows everything about the 9/11 attacks like fragments of WTC buildings, a burned firetruck and even victims’ clothes. In South Korea, we had a terrible accident in 2014. A ferry called Sewol was carrying 476 people when it sank off on the nation’s southwest coast, killing more than 300 people, including high school students. I was wondering whether the government will be able to preserve this incident like the 9/11 memorial.
Q: Is America what you expected it to be?
A: Some of it is what I expected, but others aspects are different. When I went to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York. They were what I expected because they are well-known. After staying in Louisville, I have experienced how Americans live with Social Security, taxes, health care and a credit score. Before coming here I never thought about those things. Life here looks to be more difficult than in South Korea.
Q: What has been the weirdest American food you have seen or tried?
A: Deep-fried Oreos was the weirdest American food for me. I was surprised at all the different deep-fried foods.
Q: What food do you miss most about home?
A: I miss many spicy Korean foods. Mexican spicy food and even Chinese and Japanese food are different here. I tried some Korean restaurants in Louisville, but all of the food is less spicy.
Q: What challenges did you have coming here and preparing for your semester abroad?
A: To come here I needed to achieve the required score for the TOEFL exam. While I worked in the company, I studied for the exam. It was hard to do both: working and studying at the same time. Getting a student visa was also a complicated process. Even though it was just a student visa, I needed a lot of identification papers to complete the process.