On Oct. 15, the Online Ambassadors held their first meeting for the fall semester of 2015. The meeting was a rather small and private affair, with eight students gathered around, chatting away on their experiences at Ewha, which would later be told to the rest of the world.
Online Ambassadors, part of the International Student Scholarship Volunteer program, are international students of various backgrounds who act as representatives of Ewha on social media. On their chosen form of social media such as Facebook and Weibo, the ambassadors individually write every week  about studying in Korea as a foreign student, more specifically in Ewha. The topics range from advantages of studying in Korea to international student events, and various Ewha student clubs.
“From what I’ve heard, some of our Ambassadors have reached 1,000 views on a single post,” said Kang Ji-won (Life Sciences, 2), the student leader of Online Ambassadors. “I think this shows the extent to how Online Ambassadors are able to reach out to different countries to raise awareness of Ewha.”
Starting this semester, new changes were added to the program. First, Kang was appointed as a student leader, to actively communicate between the Online Ambassadors and Office of International Affairs (OIA). She is responsible for relaying important notices, organizing meeting dates and helping new volunteers begin their work.
“I started out as a regular Online Ambassador last year and worked for two semesters in a row,” Kang said. “When I applied for the third time, Bak Chae-rin, an official from OIA asked me to lead the new group of volunteers because I had prior experience.”
In addition, monthly meetings are now arranged to provide a chance for Online Ambassadors to get acquainted with each other. The first meeting was held with eight Online Ambassadors from different countries such as Malaysia, China, America and Turkey.
“The meeting was intended to discuss any difficulties with posting and to brainstorm ideas for future topics,” Kang said. “Because of the variety of backgrounds of each individual, I hoped that the discussions will allow Ambassadors to consider new aspects to include in their posts and provide a wider perspective on their experiences in Korea.”
The ultimate goal of Online Ambassadors is to provide a comprehensive view into life as an international student in Korea to viewers around the world. By doing so, they have the chance to convince more people who are on the border about coming to Korea to make that leap and study abroad. With the reconstructed system of Online Ambassadors, Kang showed confidence that they could produce higher quality postings.
“Previously, being an Online Ambassador felt like an extremely isolated task,” Kang said. “However, with the presence of a leader and monthly meetings, Ambassadors can now collaborate to produce high quality work.”
Kang also stated that as of this semester, Ambassadors were given the free reign to mix in new and interesting topics to discuss for international audiences instead of being assigned with several repeating topics, which would also lead to high quality work.
저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지