AS student Hyunseo Kong is a finalist of the IES Abroad Short Film Festival with the”Wrong Way”!
Hi, I’m Hyunseo! I’m an Asian Studies major, entering class of ’21, currently in my final semester at Yonsei and preparing for graduate school in architecture.
I entered Asian Studies without a very clear sense of what I wanted from the major. Coming from a relatively passive learning environment growing up in South Korea, I initially struggled with the dense readings and the kind of critical thinking the courses demanded. I explored more of the arts through CDM and Interior Architecture courses and music student clubs, and for a while I thought Asian Studies might simply become a major I was leaving behind. Instead, I’ve gradually realised that one of my biggest advantages as an artist/architect could be the critical lens that Asian Studies helped me develop. Now, as I complete my final AS seminar, I find myself approaching the subject with much more joy because it has seeped into almost every other part of my life outside of the classroom.
Wrong Way begins with a simple question: why do we still bother to go out into the world and experience things for ourselves when almost everything can now be accessed through a phone, from our own rooms? More fundamentally, what does it mean to take risks and choose the unpredictable in an age of AI, algorithms, and optimisation?
As an extension of my exchange year in the US, I spent a semester interning in London through Yonsei OIA’s Global STERN programme. Crashing out in Ouarzazate when I was supposed to be in London for my first day at the Arab British Centre turned out to be one of the best mistakes I’ve made this year. The film grew out of that experience, but also out of many of the questions Asian Studies had taught me to ask: how to engage with the people and places we so often discuss from a distance, in a world increasingly shaped by problems that transcend national borders. I hope Wrong Way reminds you that there may be no such thing as the “wrong way” if you choose to make something meaningful out of where it takes you.
++ Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about Yonsei’s programmes! I remember wishing I had an AS sunbae who had done all of this before me. Or, if you simply want to chat, I’m always happy to connect 🙂
annakongcap@naver.com
Wrong Way
A Korean student accidentally goes to Morocco instead of starting her internship in London. One wrong turn becomes a story about connection, empathy, and learning to care beyond what we know.
Film by Hyunseo Kong (Yonsei University) – London Internship (SAF)
Watch it here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mej2lxgtIOw&list=PLO7e7_hKy_Ls&index=2&t=11s
🎬 Founded in 2014, the IES Abroad Study Abroad Film Festival was the first student-focused study abroad film festival in the industry. Since then, the IES Abroad Film Festival has provided students a platform to voice their global journey through their own words and video footage, capturing unique views into their life-changing study abroad experiences – showing what the experience meant to them and how it redefined their world.
