Is it worth studying in S. Korea?

honestly your plan is solid but one thing people don't mention enough is the social side. living in seoul as a foreigner grad student can be isolating if you don't push yourself to join lab events or language exchanges. the engineering buildings at snu are kind of spread out so you might not bump into people naturally. also check if your target professor's lab has international students already that makes a huge difference for adjusting. for ML specifically, the naver connect foundation runs free workshops and hackathons in korean that are great for networking and practicing tech vocab in context. your web dev skills will actually help a lot for landing internships at startups in gangnam where they need full-stack people who can also handle ML pipelines

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yeah it's worth it if you're targeting ML/AI, that's where the money and r&d is in korea rn. snu and ku both have solid labs but snu's AI institute is a bit more established, especially with the government funding. just a heads up, a lot of the good AI courses are taught in korean even at the grad level, so getting to topik 4 is smart but you'll still want to practice technical vocab for things like neural networks or reinforcement learning. also, the job market for software engineers is decent but ML roles specifically are more concentrated in big companies like naver or kakao, and they tend to prefer grads from those two unis. your web dev background should help you stand out for entry-level spots though, since a lot of local grads focus purely on theory

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topik 4 is the right target but ngl the jump from a2 to 4 is no joke, especially the writing section. most people i know hit a wall around topik 3 because the vocab gets way more formal and academic. for comp sci masters, some programs let you substitute english test scores like toefl instead of topik if the lab head approves, so you might have more flexibility than you think. also check if snu or ku offer the "korean language and culture" track for grad students, it's basically free korean classes on campus and helps with the transition way more than self study. one thing about ML jobs here that's shifting is that naver and kakao are hiring more data engineers than pure ML researchers right now, so having that web dev + sql background is honestly more practical than just deep learning theory. your timing is good though, the ai investment from the government is rolling out through 2026 so there's a lot of new funded projects at both schools

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the whispering thing is real but its not about the sauce lol. that guy runs a 2am handoff with the chicken supplier, they drop off fresh birds from a farm near Chuncheon three times a week instead of using the frozen stuff most hongdae spots rely on. thats why the texture hits different, not the sauce itself. if u go back ask for the neck & wing combo off menu, its cheaper & honestly the best cut they do

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the thing nobody mentions is that Dogdogdog's sauce gets its body from cheong, the Korean rice syrup, not sugar. thats why it coats the wing so thick and stays glossy instead of going sticky. i asked a guy who worked there and he said they also add a splash of maesil (plum) extract at the end off the heat. that fruity tang under the garlic is what you're tasting. go on a weekday before 6, weekends the wait hits 40 min easy.

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honestly the "secret sauce" thing is prob just marketing. every fried chicken place in Seoul has a version of that story. the real difference at Dogdogdog is they double fry in rice bran oil and toss the wings in the sauce twice, once right out of the fryer and again after a 30 sec rest. thats where the crunch comes from, not some mystery ingredient. if u wanna taste the actual base, order the banban half plain half spicy and dip the plain one in the spicy sauce yourself.

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