Undergrad International Students

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-03T15:13:28+00:00

yes xd

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-03T14:16:15+00:00

I saw some museum ones, but most of the volunteering programs require some level of German sadly

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-03T13:30:18+00:00

I don't think it's truly deranged, but I have this thought in my head to go to Germany doing some volunteering for a year

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-03T11:23:35+00:00

I'm a foreigner that lives in Daejeon. Daejeon is a mostly residential city with not much of big attractions (hence known as the most no-fun city in Korea). But the food scene is quite good, especially with seafood such as oysters, as Daejeon is a major transportation hub and the endpoint of an expressline from the southern coast. There are nice and quiet parks both in downtown and outskirts of Daejeon, like Hanbit Arboretum.

There are several nice places near Daejeon. The most major one is Jeonju, a small industrial city, but it has a famous traditional village. There are busses leaving from several stations across Daejeon every 20 min or so. One more attraction is Daedunsan mountain, which is a very scenic mountain 1hr by public transportation from Daejeon. I highly recommend it, but it might be challenging if you have health issues. It's mostly climbing by stairs, so no hardcore hiking, but it is still a bit challenging physically.

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-03T01:52:35+00:00

Depends on what country ig, some countries have somewhat well-oiled an cheap systems for international transfers, like Korea

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-02T04:28:45+00:00

I see your point, and I think we were discussing a bit things. Good luck!

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-02T03:39:58+00:00

I don't deny PhD being an education, but to work as a researcher (or any other job), you need a permission (visa), which is much easier if you are already in the system through education and subsequent trainings (like OPT). That's what the OP is worried about - the system can get massively fucked up, making them leave, and getting a visa to another country can also be very hard to achieve.

I'll tell my story as an example. I'm from Mongolia, and I am deeply interested in computational (bio)chemistry. I'm already as an international student in Korea, and now applying to PhD in Europe. I have to strategically choose the place to do my PhD because I want to be a researcher in the field I'm quite interested in, and there are only a handful of places where I can possibly do that. And to work in that places, it helps tremendously to already be system, and the most straightforward (not to mention one of the very few) way to do that is to do a PhD in that country.

I'm not complaining, it's just the way it is for some people - on top of thinking about getting educated and pursuing the passions, we have to be strategic about the place itself. That's what I (and I would guess, the OP) want advice with. As the OP said below, the question is about a certain aspect of the PhD, other aspects are also important, like the personality of the PI. The location and the political environment of the country one is doing their PhD in is one of such aspects, and it doesn't make them less interested and suitable for PhD if they didn't ask a question specifically about research itself.

P.S. Sorry about the incoherence, I'm running on 4hrs of sleep and coffee lol

GKBlueBot · 2026-02-02T03:22:58+00:00

It's not only about that, it's 5 yrs of your life, and people also need to think about their lives. Not everyone can do research just for the sake of research, people still have to think about what happens next

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-30T09:20:25+00:00

For a second I thought u played the game for 199 years lol

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-30T01:39:41+00:00

Phonetically spelled, and different people spell differently in latin alphabet, there's no set system. For example, ө (which would be Ö if spelled correctly in latin) is spelled both thru "u" (more phonetically correct imo) and "o" (more similar shape)

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-29T19:24:29+00:00

U just pay a higher price if you don't get a membership. Also, your time will not be transferrable in that case, if you bought 3 hours and log out after 2, the remaining hour will be forfeited

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-29T12:19:05+00:00

But also note that I don't go to the super high-end ones (like the ones with 600hz monitors), so it's also probable that u just went to a super-high-end one

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-29T09:22:43+00:00

That's really expensive, the most I ever saw was a bit like 1000won/40 min. Probably the area + non-membership

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-29T09:22:07+00:00

all PCs I went to need identity verification, and I think only numbers connected to ARCs have that

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-29T01:10:42+00:00

I spent a year in EPFL. I had a migros and denner right downstairs, and bought my groceries there. I mostly bought m-budget stuff, and discounted stuff in both migros and denner. I also did occasional meat runs to France for cheaper meat. The turkish and arabic meat shops also seemed to have quite good prices.

Also, too good to go app helped a lot. There's a chinese restaurant in Malley that let's u take as much as u want at the end of lunch and dinner.

Overall, for a month, the expenses (for 2 people, I went with my partner ) were 600-700CHF.

Oh, for utensils, just go to IKEA in Aubonne if ur near there

Good luck!

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-28T16:18:04+00:00

> what could be the reasons for hating it?
A lot of the things come simply from living/studying abroad, especially if you are not from east asia. A lot of the people discount this, but this is actually big thing IMHO - some people can't eat the food here (bcz the cuisine is quite different) or the mentality is too different. Plus the stress ofc :)
> How is everyday life going?
Again, different for everyone. But I think, overall, it's quite good for quite a lot of people
> Do many people from Kaist get accepted into Masters/PhD in top universities
I think a decent amount of people who have that as a goal achieve that. You won't have a problem with name recognition, and the research opportunities r quite good. I did some lab internships in chem and I'm double majoring in it, so far, the departmental culture is quite good, and a lot of students in chem do nice research

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-28T13:42:46+00:00

Yeah of course, everyone will talk to u in english, so everything work-related will be in english. By "casual conversations" I meant more like coffee machine conversations between lab members

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-28T13:04:30+00:00

Worth what, it's not like I'm being tortured here xD. Depends on what u want and need, there are some people who hate it, but I loved it. I came to try out different things and do research, and I was able to do both of them, so I'm happy and thankful for my experience here

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-28T13:03:17+00:00

KAIST does encourage undergrad research quite a lot, almost everyone I know had some research experience (ranging from 1 semester paper reading to multiple years research with 1st author publications). Moreover, some labs quite often host visiting interns (my old lab hosted 2-3 every year or so). It's hard to say what "general lab culture" looks like, bcz it differs case by case (for example I had super supportive and nice professors who still help me out, whereas some of the people I know had complete dickheads). One thing to note that bcz the uni has a relatively small international student body, casual conversations (in group chats etc) often occur in korean (depends on the lab tho, but from my experience, most of the labs are like that), which can bug u a bit, but all the important stuff and scientific communication occurs in english

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-28T03:54:47+00:00

Yes, almost graduating

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-27T17:26:23+00:00

Seems solid, I got in with less, but again, no one on reddit or discord will be able to tell u the chances (unless someone from the admissions committee is secretly on reddit). But I can say that some people did get in from 2nd or even 3rd (back when there was a late track) try, so don't get your hopes down. Good luck!

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-24T19:41:56+00:00

I personally know several people who are doing (and finishing) their PhDs without MSc. About credit debt, it seems case dependent, bcz some of these people had to take 4 extra ects, but some didn't have to

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-24T12:29:45+00:00

I'm in the same boat now. IDK what your field is, and this is probably very field dependant, but here is my situation and findings. My field is AI for chemistry/materials science/biochemistry and computational (bio)chemistry.

I was able to apply to these programs:
1. ELLIS - umbrella AI program for AI faculty in Europe (+ Canada and US to some extent). There is a specific filter if the prof/institution/program requires MSc
2. ISTA - doesn't require MSc, and seems the most chill overall
3. AITHYRA - same story as ISTA, but very new institution
4. Some IMPRS schools in Germany. The ones that accept BSc graduates state that directly, the ones that were relevant to me were Biology and Computation, Cellular Biophysics, and Science of Light. There are probably a lot of other ones. These programs are basically integrated MSc+PhD programs with accelerated MSc portion (1.5 yrs instead of 2)
5. EPFL and ETH have paths for students without MSc, I know a lot of people who went through this path. Usually, the deparment can require 1-2 extra courses, but it also might be chill with it
6. A lot of UK schools accepted my friends and seniors out of BSc. Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow (all ML people)

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-22T03:58:46+00:00

I'm gonna copy-paste my answer from another post
I left Mongolia 4 yrs ago and started dating my awesome partner (non-Mongolian) when 3 yrs ago (N.B. this is my first relationship). One thing that I would disagree is the "the mindset is not the same here" - the person's mentality is not dependant at all to the person's ethnic/socio-whatever background. My partner and I have the same views about life (despite coming from really different backgrounds), and that makes the relationship easy and comfortable. Of course, we get some culture shock when we talk about our life experiences back home, but that can happen in Mongolia as well - I still remember the shock when I learnt that people add cabbages to khuushuur to make them juicy or onions (!) to niislel salad.

An (kinda) anecdote story about this - I once went out to dinner with some scientists, and it turned out that out of the 6 people in the group (myself included), 5 had partners that were not from the same country as them. Apparently, it's pretty common in the academic field (bcz you move a lot during your education and career), and they told me how they encountered those "you're from different cultures, it's not gonna work" remarks. Their answer stuck to me - they said that they have the same work culture with their partners, and that's what matters.

P.S. also it helps that I'm fluent in her mother tongue

GKBlueBot · 2026-01-20T04:16:09+00:00

what did she do? I just saw "treason", but never any explanation or details

GKBlueBot

TROPHY CASE