Nihat Khalizade, head of the Global Korea Scholarship alumni association, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the newspaper's office in Seoul, Feb. 9. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
As Korea intensifies efforts to attract and retain global professionals, the Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) program plays an important role in bringing international students to the country. This is the first in an interview series that follows the journeys of GKS alumni, offering insight into how their experiences reflect the opportunities and challenges shaping Korea’s evolving global workforce. — ED.
Korea has never been more popular with the world’s students, its classrooms filling with thousands drawn by the global allure of K-pop and high-tech prowess. But for those who stay, the transition from "guest" to "resident" remains governed by top-down policies crafted without the input of those they affect.
“As Korea has gained global recognition as a leading study destination in recent years, it is time to incorporate the perspectives of people with foreign backgrounds when designing policies related to foreign residents’ settlement,” Nihat Khalizade, an Azerbaijani-born naturalized Korean and head of the Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) alumni association, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
“I hope to draw on my experience to help shape policies that better support international students and talents seeking to build their lives in Korea,” he added.
Khalizade first arrived in Korea in 2011 as a GKS student at the young age of 17.
“At the time, Korea was far less globally visible than today’s K-pop-driven powerhouse, and information about studying in the country was limited,” Khalizade said.
“I landed at night and couldn’t do anything," he recalled. "There was so little information available that I hadn’t even exchanged money into Korean won and had only brought U.S. dollars. Everything around the dormitory — even convenience stores — was closed. On my first day, I kept asking myself whether I had made the right choice to study abroad.”
When he first began learning Korean, the process was anything but easy.
“Because there weren’t many native English speakers, students from third countries often had to learn Korean through English first,” he said. “That meant translating Korean into English and then into my native language, which made learning much harder.”
Source: Korea Times News
