Making friends while abroad was one of my biggest worries because I have grown up in Hawaii all my life and have always had people I knew around even in college. I wasn't sure how easy or hard it would be for me to have to actively seek out people to be friends with, especially with the barrier of online school. Usually, the schools will have programs for the study abroad students and have events where it was possible to meet others, but because of the Korean COVID restrictions, this was not an option.
I tried to be proactive and make friends before I even got to Korea by posting in the facebook student exchange groups but this unfortunately did not work out for me, but it is an easy way to put yourself out there and it has been successful for some! Even though this method did not work out well for me, it did help me find certain group chats to join to talk to people studying abroad specifically at my school which was not just useful for making friends but getting updates and news too. Once you enter a group chat, it ranges from 200-800 students who are all in the same position as you and are also eager to make friends. In those group chats, they make smaller chats for specific hobbies/sub groups like people who like hiking, want to practice language exchange, BTS fans, dancing, and they pretty much have one for everything so try to ask around and get yourself invited to one you are interested in. With that, it is much more manageable to talk to specific people to make friends with. For me however, I actually utilized the BFF function in the Bumble app to meet people and I found this to be the most successful method for me. It was strange at first but there were so many exchange students and Korean locals on the app just wanting to hang out so there are plenty of options. I met 80% of my friends on this app and they truly made my study abroad experience 1000% better. So I will always advocate using this method. The app allows you to know more about people before you decide if you want to talk to them so that way you can already have a sense for compatibility. It has questions they can write their answer to that shows their personality, it links their spotify top artists and instagram and shows where they are originally from. I thought this was so useful and everyone on the app was genuine which made it more welcoming. Look below for some of my best bumble bffs <3
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Hi :)Thanks for being interested and visiting my blog. I post more videos about my travel and experience on my instagram @michizzles. Feel free to look through my photos there and message for any questions for recommendations. Archives
December 2021
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