During summer 2015, I spent an eye-opening month studying Korean language at Ewha Womans University. That’s right — womans. However, if you’re a male reading this, don’t be discouraged. Male exchange students are permitted during summer sessions.

Before I delve into why I chose Ewha as my school of choice, I want to outline how I was able to attend. I come from an extremely low-income family, and the cost of tuition, room and board, and flight to and from Korea was not in my budget at all. To afford the trip, I applied for the Gilman Scholarship and was lucky enough to be a recipient. The Gilman Scholarship is especially great for study abroad summer intensive programs, as well as semester-long programs. The best candidates for the Gilman are those going to less popular destinations for study abroad, as well as those studying a critical language, such as Korean. As with many scholarships, your income and family background, heritage and race affect your chances as well. It is also a good idea to have someone proofread your application for you — the International Center has a study abroad adviser designated to help with Gilman essays, or you can utilize the Writing Center, a professor or a friend to review your application. A second set of eyes is a valuable tool. When reviewing your application, make sure you strive to have a diverse application, as well as an open heart and mind. I cannot stress enough how vital this scholarship was for me. Without it I would not have been able to study abroad at Ewha.

The first reason I was drawn to Ewha was its prestige. Ewha is one of the top universities, as well as the top women’s university, in South Korea. Additionally, it boasts an impressive list of alumni: Choi Bo-in represented South Korea in Miss World 2008, Chung Il-mi is a South Korean professional golfer, Yuko Fueki is a Japanese actress who is popular in South Korea, Han Myeong-sook was the first female prime minister of South Korea, Kang Sok-kyong is an award-winning author, and Chaerin Kim is an accredited Korean harpist. Most famous to Americans might be Claudia Kim, who is famous for starring in many Hollywood films, including “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and the Netflix original series “Marco Polo.” The wife of the CEO of Samsung is also an alumna of Ewha and is known to donate charitably to the school.

Another reason I chose Ewha was the breadth of courses they offer. You can take courses on topics like business and economics, gender studies, humanities and social sciences, as well as cultural courses like pottery and learning to play traditional Korean instruments. All of these courses are taught by highly-esteemed professors in their fields. Many have graduated from Ivy League universities like Harvard and Yale. Any of the courses are more than worth your time; however, the reason I chose Ewha was because it offers higher level Korean language courses. To my knowledge, Ewha was the only school that had an existing partnership with the University of Missouri and offered these kinds of courses.

I had previously studied two years of Korean at MU, and I was placed in the Korean level two, section three course at Ewha. The course was taught entirely in Korean. Because there were slight differences in vocabulary and grammar taught to the variety of students in the classroom, there was no pressure to ask a teacher for an additional explanation of anything. My fellow students came from France, China, Japan, Switzerland, India and many other countries. So not only did I have the opportunity to immerse myself in Korean culture, but I was exposed to cultures from all around the world. If you want, you can team up with a partner and do your homework together as well. The homework was minimal and usually easy. Most of it could be done in an hour or less and contained quite a few conjugation tables. The extra time you had during the day and night was great to spend exploring Seoul and practicing your Korean with native Koreans.

Learning continues outside of the classroom with cultural excursions. Some excursions might include a trip to the Han River, a visit to a traditional village, a day riding rides at Lotte World or even a visit to the DMZ. These excursions are available all for a small fee, and you can opt out of any of the individual excursions with advance notice. Additionally, whether you live on or off campus, each exchange student is assigned an Ewha Peace Buddy. You share your buddy with about three other exchange students and you can join events that your buddy plans for your group.

You can pay a little more to have a dorm room to yourself, or you can choose to live off-campus in a hostel or other arrangement. I ended up living in an Ewha dorm with a roommate. The male exchange students live on a different floor than the females, and there are communal areas where everyone gather. I forget the exact time, but there was a curfew after which guests are not allowed in the dorm. And guests of the opposite sex are not allowed in your room. My roommate was Taiwanese-Canadian and she was so amazing. We got along well and after the Ewha session ended, she invited me to her house in Taiwan to spend a week. The connections I got to make with other students by living with a roommate were immeasurable to me. I personally recommend this housing option should you attend Ewha.

Furthermore, the Ewha campus has numerous amenities. They have quite a few cafes and restaurants, as well as a bakery, convenience store, bookstore and more in and around their famous campus center. There is also a bank. Fun fact: You can link a bank account to your student ID card and use it as a bank card and public transportation card.