By Hudson Coombs
Mississippi State, Miss. (Take 30 News)--- On March 11th of 2020, prior to moving classes online, Mississippi State University announced the cancellation of all international travel, including all summer study abroad programs in order to combat the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In 2019, the Kinesiology department here at Mississippi State University created a new study abroad program that travels to South Korea during the month of May. Take 30 News spoke with Dr. Soyoun Lim, the faculty director of the trip, and she was quite happy with how last year’s trip went.
“Last summer it was a lot of fun,” Lim said. “We visited some of the major sport venues and also we attended some of the Korean professional sport games. The fan culture is very different, and I wanted our students to experience that,” Lim said.
However, the department’s trip to South Korea was canceled on March 3rd, prior to the university canceling all study abroad trips, due to the serious COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea.
“So, because of the impact of the coronavirus in South Korea,” Lim said, “it was officially canceled yesterday. This whole situation is very unfortunate, but it happened, and I feel like there is a limit to how much we can control.”
Dr. Lim and the department explored the opportunity to postpone the trip to July in order to move it to another country. However, Dr. Lim believed that the continuous spread of the coronavirus would scare away any possible applicants and the trip was canceled. With infection rates beginning to decrease in some countries, Dr. Lim and the Kinesiology department hope that everything will return to normal in time for next year’s trip to South Korea.