Thiel College, which is located in a peaceful countryside, offers various events that exchange students can join. Photo provided by Jung Jee-hyun.

Thiel College is located in Greenville which is a small and peaceful countryside. Lots of things have changed during my exchange student program in Thiel. In this report, I want to focus on two things I felt so much comparing to the other things: sharing culture and rural life in Thiel.
First of all, it gave me various opportunities to get along with the local students in America. I have learned English for about 10 years through my life but it was my first time to use it. I was nervous at the first time because I was doubtful whether I could communicate with the students in Thiel. However, most of the students were very kind to me and tried to understand me. I think that was a great opportunity for me. In addition, it was such a great time that we can share cultural things together. Starting from the basic things like foods, instructing someone, I had much time to talk about cultural difference between Korea and America, also Western culture and Eastern culture.
Thiel College is very sensitive to exchange students so there were many different kinds of events that exchange students can join. So even though I was not that much active at joining the event, I could follow the events naturally. For example, there was an event that took us to an elementary school in Greenville. By using the homeroom (HR) time of the school, we explained Korean culture to the kids in there and also we could listen from other country’s students like Pakistan.
 Secondly, one of the greatest things I could feel was peaceful life in Thiel. In my whole life I have lived in Seoul. It is a great thing to live in the capital of country and I enjoyed living in Seoul before I found charming points of Greenville. I learned new perspective of life. In Thiel, during the daytime, there was plenty of time so I could do diverse activities such as playing the piano and hanging out. In the night, there were always lots of stars to see. During holiday, I sometimes went to Pittsburgh which is the nearest big city from Greenville. There was a time that we had a handbell or choir concert on holidays also. In conclusion, my life in Thiel was always very small and peaceful. So it could seem boring to someone.
However, I was so happy to experience slow but valuable life. I think I will never forget memories and lessons from Thiel. I feel so thankful that I could learn and share what I got and I hope many students decide Thiel as an exchange school so that they can also experience what I learned.

*Jung Jee-hyun (Economics, 4) studied at Thiel College as an exchange student.

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