She learnt a new language in 6 months to study music composition in South Korea

A pianist since she was 4 years old, Silver Lim always expected to dedicate her life’s work to music.  

But the Malaysian never expected to study it some 4,650km away in South Korea.  

It was during a fateful visit to an education fair when she first heard of Dankook University. The very last booth in the fair’s South Korea section, Lim’s mum urged her to consider it.  

“At the time, Korea was not very popular as an option,” she says. “Because the catch is that you need to learn in Korean. I shut off to that mindset. Even Chinese is hard for me, you know, why would I take a whole course in another language?” 

With the promise of free dormitories, Dankook sounded like a more okay option, but Lim still wasn’t sold. A few months later, after sitting for her IGCSEs, her mum brought up the idea again: “Since you’re free, let’s go find some language courses.” 

Yet, they couldn’t find intensive Korean courses that would get Lim ready to study in a foreign country.  

As a Christian, Lim prayed about the situation. And her prayers were answered when she attended the education fair again in December, because the first booth she saw was none other than Dankook’s.  

Another sign: it was the only Korean university at that time and they were promoting a new Korean language course in Malaysia.  

It was the sign Lim needed to embark on a brave, new chapter.  

Lim moved abroad after picking up Korean in six months Source: Silver Lim

New language, new dreams 

Unlike her classmates who were already interested in Korean culture, Lim knew next to nothing. She couldn’t even say hello in the language.  

“The first class was an assessment test,” she recalls. “I wrote my name and left the class.”  

Despite her struggles, Lim quickly made new friends. One day, a friend of hers, who was renting a room with a school admin, revealed that the admin was talking badly about her behind her back.  

“That really fired me up,” she expresses. “I was like, okay I got to do better. I studied really hard for it, and then for our [university’s] entrance test, which is the final test before going to uni, I got one wrong out of the whole paper. I got top of the class!” 

She had successfully learnt Korean in six months.

Lim studied at Dankook, which has two campuses in South Korea. Source: Silver Lim

Unexpected challenges 

But the trials didn’t stop when she got to Korea. It wasn’t as simple as spelling her name wrong or going into the wrong classroom — she had signed up for the wrong major.  

She had chosen to major in “contemporary piano,” which refers to non-classical styles like jazz, pop, and film scores, rather than Beethoven and Mozart. When she arrived in Korea, she realised “contemporary piano” meant 100% jazz piano in Dankook.  

“I can’t play jazz,” she thought. “You said contemporary!”  

Thankfully, Lim was allowed to change her major after one semester. She had to sit through the exams first, though, which required her to memorise a seven-page piece.  

“I got a really bad score, but I was done with jazz piano, thank God,” she reminisces.  

Thus began her student life as a contemporary composition major. 

Lim and her friends. Source: Silver Lim

Living the fast life  

Although she had picked up enough Korean to get by, writing lengthy essays in the language was still challenging. Luckily, most professors let her submit English versions of her work.  

Still, Korea was intense. It was fast-paced, competitive, and business-like. The standards were very high, which has its pros and cons. It could feel very elitist, but it also pushed you to buck up and put in the work.  

If you can keep up with that sort of pressure, Lim thinks you’ll do well. If not, you might want to consider going elsewhere.  

Since Lim had gone through both the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and Yamaha curriculum, her foundations were solid. Well, she thought so. 

But even with good basics, professors in Korea often expected students to go above and beyond to show respect, sometimes to the degree of dishing out flattery.  

Even friendships among classmates felt transactional. If you had no value to provide, they wouldn’t see any point in maintaining a relationship with you.  

This observation of Lim’s was validated by fellow Malaysian students, as well as Korean friends themselves when they later visited Malaysia.  

“Malaysians are so nice,” they would exclaim. “Why, though? I have nothing to give them.”  

After graduating from Dankook in 2020, Lim completed an online graduate-level course in music marketing from Berklee Online.  

Today, she’s an active musician in the Malaysian scene, as well as an adjunct professor at University College Sedaya International (UCSI) and a vocal tutor. Like her Korean professors, she has high standards for her students and expects quality performance — but no flattery required.  

Lim majored in composition of contemporary music. Source: Silver Lim