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Johanna S.

Jo. 23. Dallas, Texas South Korea
Hometown: Coppell, Texas

Hi, I'm Jo! I was born in 1998, so as of right now I am 23 years old. I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and have always been looking out at the world waiting for my chance to travel all around it. I learned Spansh and French in middle and high school. In 2015 I had my first experience abroad and my first experience travelling alone to Kingston, Canada. The following summer in 2016, I had the chance to go to Costa Rica as a volunteer and to practice my Spanish. I went again for a second time the following summer.

I enrolled at Texas A&M University in 2017 studying electric and mechanical engineering. After three semesters of this, I found the homework to be a bit tedius and boring so I switched majors to Visualization (which I completed my Bachelor of Science in 2021). As a part of the Visualization program, I was required to do a semester away. I found a program in Asan, South Korea that seemed really exciting and in August 2020, I embarked on my furthest and longest journey away from home that I have ever been on. My program was supposed to last only 5 months, but I was absolutely loving life in South Korea; even in the height of the pandemic I was able to learn and do so much. I extended my stay to a year and when it was time to go, I was still not ready to leave. I knew I had to go back.

During my time in South Korea, I made many new friends and learned so much about myself. I had always thought about being a teacher since I was always finding myself in tutoring or teaching roles throughout my life. With some encouragement from these aformentioned friends I decided to take the leap. I got to work on getting my TEFL certification and getting everything in line for me to start this next chapter of my life. Here I plan to write about my experience as a form of self-reflectance and if anyone ends up here looking for help or guidance, I hope my experience can give you what you need!

Posts

One Month in South Korea

By Johanna S.

One month in Korea and I’m about halfway to feeling settled. The first 24 hours are probably the hardest but that is to be expected. If you have never visited... keep reading

A non-comprehensive list of everything I did before teaching abroad

By Johanna S.

OCTOBER My journey officially started in October of 2021. That was when I made the decision to apply for CIEE’s TEFL Certification and Teach in South Korea Program. I remember... keep reading

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