The Student Counseling Center (SCC) has developed a group counseling program for international students and foreign exchange students, starting from the current semester.
The two-day program took place on Nov. 20 and Nov. 22 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., for four hours respectively.
Participants had a pre-counseling meeting through telephone interview on Nov. 13 to talk about their physical and psychological difficulties they experienced at Ewha. Also, the meeting gave the participants a chance to speak up about what counseling advices that they want to receive from the program.
The program was introduced mainly in reflection of the increasing number of foreign students studying in Ewha.
“Because more and more international students come to Ewha, the school devised a plan to help them to adjust to their new surroundings,” said An Hyun-mi, the counseling psychologist of the SCC. “By consulting with experts on psychology, international students will be able to receive professional psychological support.”
The group counseling program aims to provide a safer and more comfortable environment to the international students studying in Ewha.
Participants are able to share their worries such as psychological problems and interpersonal relationship difficulties from studying overseas.
Twelve participating students were accepted through e-mail on a first-come-first-serve basis. Students were allowed to talk about various problems with others in the group. After sharing all the worries that they had, the group members discussed the problems and gave feedbacks to one another.
The SCC expects the international students to find their own ways to adapt to Korea and Ewha, and also plans to improve their lives at school by listening to their problems through the program. 
“We are planning to open the group counseling program for international students each semester, and also to enlarge its scale,” An said. “The program aims to offer consistent help for students studying abroad at Ewha who are experiencing problems with relationships, languages, and other psychological matters.”
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