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I was a KGSP scholar, batch 201x, Master’s program.Please take note that the KGSP scholarship for undergraduate and graduate students are different. I had the latter.TL;DR Learning Korean for a year with the other scholars was so much fun. However, it is very important that you verify who your professor/s will be in graduate school. If your major is a technical one, verify if you need to work in a university laboratory. Verify if your professor is a good person (or not). If you are still not sure about it, proceed at your own risk.The following outlines my experiences as a government scholar in Korea:KGSP is indeed the best scholarship for international students in Korea. It covers everything, from airline tickets to/fro Korea (Korean Air or Asiana, economy seat), moving in, tuition, enough monthly allowance, thesis printing expenses, etc. You won’t have much problem with regard to money if you spend within your means. However, it is a bit hard to save money as most of the time the monthly allowance is just enough.The scholarship program includes a required 1 year intensive Korean language course, and then 2 years of study for Master’s or 3 years for PhD. You need to obtain TOPIK level 3 on your first year (the highest level is 6). Learning Korean will help you immensely while living in Korea.Korean language was quite hard to learn especially for an English speaker like me. The grammar structures were so different from English, not to mention the numerous words I had to learn. It took me lots of practice to eventually feel comfortable in using the language. Prepare to feel stupid everyday. (Though this goes for learning any new language.)One of the things I was truly thankful for was that I was able to meet people from different countries who eventually became lifelong friends. For our batch, students were divided equally and enrolled to only a select few university language institutes. This enabled scholars to gather, help, and support each other in learning Korean, as opposed to the previous KGSP system wherein scholars were enrolled to the language institute of the same university they applied grad school to. Because of this, I was able to meet and become friends with people from various countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Hungary, Taiwan, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, Cambodia, USA, China, Yemen, Morocco, Zambia, and Kenya, among others. I was able to learn about different cultures from and make a bunch of unforgettable memories with these lovely people. Up to this day, we unanimously agree that the best time we had in Korea was during our first year of learning Korean language together.During our language training, almost all of us lived in a dorm and we were each other’s roomies (2 for each room). We were pretty lucky because our language institute’s university had a fairly new dorm building and that they gave KGSP students some % discount on the rent. When we first arrived, a taxi ahjussi was waiting for us at the airport and he took us directly to the dorm.Our language institute had an escalated intensive Korean language course wherein you could learn upto level 5 in just one year (there are 6 levels overall); other schools usually had 4 semesters a year (that means 4 levels a year). The first thing we did was take a placement exam and the teachers assigned us to appropriate levels. You don’t have to worry even if you don’t know a word of Korean—a lot of scholars started at level 1. I started at level 2 so I was able to finish till level 6. (I’m still a TOPIK level 4 though.)The Korean teachers we had were some of the most understanding, patient, and easy to talk to Koreans we’ve met in Korea. They were exposed to various cultures due to the variety of students they teach and spend time with everyday; they were also the first ones who would come to your rescue if you’re in trouble or if you needed help. All of them talk oh so clearly, too, compared to the average Korean. However, don’t expect level 1 classes to be taught in English. All Korean classes are taught in pure Korean—with lots of hand and body gestures. :)Expect to meet scholars who are fluent in Korean from day one—these people are some of the brightest minds from their countries after all. Once again, prepare to feel stupid everyday.Most of us passed TOPIK level 3 after the third or fourth semester of Korean language. After passing the exam, almost all of us felt like we didn’t want to try so hard anymore. This is because when they say ‘intensive language course’, it IS an intensive language course. We attended Korean classes from 9am to 3pm everyday (grammar, reading, listening, writing, speaking, vocab and expression), with culture classes on Friday till 5pm. We had assignments almost everyday—some of them were new words you had to use in a sentence, grammar practice questions, weekly essay writing for higher levels, and even a few transcription assignments. All of these homeworks together with midterms and finals in a span of a few weeks will make you very busy. But, of course, it pays off to do your homework. :) We got to wear our country’s traditional clothes on UN day and there was once an institute-wide quiz bee that was lots of fun. Our Korean teachers did all they could to make learning Korean language interesting for us. Students performed special numbers in Korean every end-of-semester ceremony and during level 6, our class very much enjoyed (enjoy is an understatement—it was so much fun!!!) producing and shooting a short Korean film (they air it every end-of-semester ceremony).There was a Korean buddy system wherein each of us was partnered with a Korean university student to practice Korean and hopefully become friends with. However, it almost always ended up with us going out for 1 or 2 awkward meals together before it wears off. Out of all the Korean buddies we met thru the program, only one (very cute namdongsaeng) became a longtime friend and continued to keep in touch.After language school, we needed to look for a place of our own in Seoul since we didn’t really want to stay at the university dorm due to curfew restrictions. It was very hard to look for one as almost all the rental ads were in Korean (though it was real-life practice for us), and that almost all of them were so expensive. Luckily, we bagged a great deal at a guesthouse/sharehouse for 300k won a person per month (me and a fellow scholar friend shared the room). What’s more, it was only a village bus to our uni and I could even choose to walk home when I wanted to do some exercise.Grad school experience largely depends on your chosen major, your university, your department, and most especially your advisor/professor. You must verify all the points mentioned above, especially the professor you will be working with (whether he’s a nice prof or not) to avoid getting a second culture shock (the first one being on your first week in Korea; almost everyone experiences one). In general, those of us who had majors that didn’t require working in a lab had better, less stressful experiences than those with technical majors who needed to work at a lab like me. If your major is anything technical that requires you to be part of a lab, your grad school life will most likely revolve around your advisor/professor. You need to choose not only an intelligent professor, but most importantly a professor who is good/nice to his students. Good professors in the technical field in Korea are rare and their labs are usually hard to get into due to high demand. To my experience, younger profs are generally more open-minded than older ones, but there are always exceptions. You need to find one who treats his students well if you don’t want to spend two/three years of grad school hell. (More explanations below.) During grad school, I lived with a fellow scholar/friend who was going to attend the same uni as me; she majored in International Trade and I majored in Computer Science, both Master’s. I’ll talk about my roommate’s routine and my technical grad school experiences in #13 and #14, respectively. I’ll also talk about some of our other fellow scholar friends’ situations in #16.My roomie was a grad student of one of the SKY (Seoul, Korea, Yonsei) university’s International Studies (IS) department where all classes are taught in English. I remember that she had foreign professors in some of her classes. She was always at our home sweet home on days she didn’t have class. She had so much more free time than me, although she would have loads of long papers to read and write piled up high before every semester ends. She was always able to take a little less than a month of vacation during semestral breaks. She also had more foreign classmates than me, and everyone in her class speaks fluent English. I once asked her what she thought of the grad program she was in and she said that it was exactly what she expected, that she knew the program wasn’t the best in the world, and that it was okay. I’m pretty sure she had a class where they discussed Korean culture together with other cultures of the world and analyzed them, because whenever I cry and confide with her about all my lab problems she would always confirm it to me that yeah, they had indeed tackled that topic in class. At that time I was basically living what she was learning about; our conversations gave me various perspectives into Korean culture and most of the time, it allowed me to find a way to understand those that are just too hard for me to understand. I owe her so much for that.Off to the most difficult part: I would like to warn the reader that what you are about to read is an account of a very difficult life of a graduate student in Korea. Please remember that this is just ONE OF MANY experiences that a student may encounter when studying in Korea. This does NOT absolutely imply that all experiences will be the same; every student’s experience will always be different. (If you want to know about our other scholar friends’ experiences, I talk about it in #16.) Here goes… When I first came to my uni’s ComSci dept., I was clueless to the fact that all grad students were required to have an advisor from day one and that you are required to work in your advisor/professor’s laboratory. At first the admin officers were not able to find my record and I was told to look for an advisor fast. After a week of contacting potential advisors, I was informed that they finally found my record on Friday; the admin officer then proceeded to escort me to my advisor/professor’s office. In all honesty, the first meeting with my professor was the biggest shock of my life in Korea. I was still a student fresh out of Korean language school at that time and I needed to do my best to concentrate just to catch what people were saying in Korean, and yet the prof was orienting me in full-speed Korean. It was a good thing I understood the important bits of what he was saying. He told me that I would have to be at the laboratory from 9am to 10pm from Mondays to Saturdays, that he would squeeze out 10 technical papers out of me during my two years there, that he accepted me into his lab because no other professor was willing to accept me during admissions (I was totally unaware of this since I applied for KGSP thru the Korean embassy in my country; it was a big mistake on my part not to contact the school directly before going), and that I should be thankful to him for accepting me (I’ve confirmed this statement with other labmates later on; apparently, he told every single one of them the same thing when they first came). After his long talk was over, I then asked him if I should start on Monday, but he cut me off and said, “No, you’ll start today,” then proceeded to escort me to the lab where he commissioned one senior labmate to give me a specific technical paper to read. I was so overwhelmed and in shock at that time; I vividly remember that I was trying desperately to understand the garble of words and equations in front of me until we heard the professor leave which signaled that we could finally leave also (at that time I wasn’t aware of this unspoken rule). The second huge shock was when I first attended the weekly lab meeting. As you know, my Korean listening skills were not at all good at that time, but I could at least get the gist of what the prof was saying in rapid Korean. He was basically telling my Korean labmates that they were useless, stupid, incompetent, foolish, have no talent—insult after degrading insult for around 30 minutes. I. Was. Dumbfounded. Internally, my jaw had already dropped to the floor. My thoughts at that time were, “Is what I’m hearing what I’m really hearing? Am I misunderstanding something?” But after 15 minutes into it I was sure I was hearing it right. I couldn’t believe it. It was a first for me to encounter a professor so foul-mouthed (in our country, professors are expected to always have the finest decorum and moral ground; they are mentors after all). Every single student in the meeting room had their heads bowed except me; I was gritting my teeth and trembling from trying to hide my shock. After that first lab meeting, it didn’t take me long to realize that every single weekly lab meeting was basically like the first one. Some even worse. There were far worse statements the prof told my Korean labmates (not me) during their one-on-one meetings like, “Why are you still living? The food you’re eating is such a waste. You should just jump off a bridge.” (That labmate quit our lab after one semester and d*mn good for him he quit early.) “You are a disabled fool” (he used ‘병신’, which is a very offensive word in Korean; that labmate was my closest Korean friend and she eventually quit SKY grad school after 1 and a half years into it for a no-name university with a much better lab environment and a very nice professor). At first I talked to the prof in pure English because I know I sounded like a kindergarten when I talk in Korean, but after a long while even when I was able to catch almost all of the prof’s Korean words, I resolved never to talk to him in Korean—I knew very well that I wouldn’t be able to debate with him in Korean about highly-technical topics, much less negotiate or even protest or get angry given the hierarchical context the language brings; most importantly, I also knew that he was less likely to swear in English (although he called me “stupid” once and I didn’t wait to call him out on it; even my parents didn’t call me that so what gives him the right). In truth, every day was so difficult; every day I would ask myself why I was still there (I had never quit anything in my entire life and I knew very well at that point I was very afraid to quit). The prof taught us the basics of the subject and nothing else after that; whenever I’d email a paper draft he would just check the format and some typos. The cycle was almost always like this: he tells me to look into something, he scolds me to present an idea fast, I present him an idea, he rejects it, he commands me to do something else, I protest because I’ve already researched it and know that it’s not likely to work, he insists that he’s right and the conversation doesn’t end until I agree to do it, I do it, it doesn’t work, he tells me I’m wasting precious time, and then proceeds to propose the very idea I presented to him the first time, of which he magically has no memory of me talking about said idea! How convenient! And with all that he gets to have the second authorship on the paper. It was so exhausting and beyond frustrating every time. (He was one of those profs who had already stopped actively doing research and relied on his lab’s students to produce more papers for him.) And yes, he indeed squeezed a lot of papers out of me that my labmates eventually gave me a nickname—“paper factory 논문공장” (It just so happened that I had the English advantage; it was common knowledge in academia that English technical papers were preferred than non-English ones, so I was a target to abuse in that way. After a while I started wishing I didn’t know English). As a result, it made me feel that I was only producing the bare minimum for a paper to be published every time, and that it always left me unsatisfied with my work. Once, he tried to encourage me to write another paper (I think he was beginning to realize at that time that I won’t write anymore) by promising that he would allot travel budget for me to be able to go to an international conference because he said he wants his students to experience presenting their work in front of other researchers. Since I love traveling, I did write a paper after that but as opposed to what he promised, he booked a ticket only for himself and proceeded to present MY paper in the conference by himself. I didn’t even know if he was able to present it properly since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the details of it—he didn’t lift a single finger on that research. I remember vividly that I was so furious not because I wasn’t able to travel, but because he intentionally lied to me. He was even the one who got angry at me when I calmly reminded him of his promise when he came back (my anger already subsided at that time; I just learned not to believe him again if there’s no guarantee that he will follow through). Sure enough, after that it seemed that he got wind of what I was thinking and he gave me a ‘guarantee’ by first sending the (scholarship) travel money to my bank account just to get me to continue to write two more papers. At this point it was already too hard to refuse—this was a few months before I was expected to graduate and I don’t want to bother about complications anymore. After that he refused to sign my graduation document if I didn’t submit three, yes three, journal drafts about previous topics I worked on. It was extremely exhausting to be exploited like that. Besides the pressure-to-publish exploitation, there were times when we were asked to return to the prof in cash one month’s (in my labmates’ cases, several months’) worth of BK scholarship (this is another scholarship being given by the Korean gov’t. to technical students of specific universities that qualify; it’s roughly $600 per month) saying that it’s lab money, yet my labmate who was assigned to audit the finances of the lab would say that sometimes the lab money would just magically disappear. One time when our labmate told us that the lab money was nowhere to be found again, we saw flight bookings made by the professor (apparently, she also handles that booking account; she handles both the lab’s finances and the booking of flights for us when needed) for both himself, and—surprise surprise—his daughter, tickets going to Europe. Wow. So my labmates’ scholarship money that’s supposed to be spent for their living expenses got cut off to pay for the prof’s daughter’s travel expenses. … Sigh… Despite everything, I’m still thankful that I was able to go to a Europe conference (by reminding the prof of his promise and getting shouted at), and most especially since I didn’t have to hear all the horrible, sarcastic, degrading c*ss words my Korean labmates were forced to hear almost everyday. … P.S. During my first months when I was still so optimistic, I tried closing the gap between the prof and the students at the lab (in English, of course) but it was repeatedly to no avail; the prof just gets angry every time. I was a fool to believe I could mend such broken relationships. … Also, there were very few alumni who came back to greet the prof on how he was doing (2 or 3?); the students who usually came back had something they needed from him. After graduating, all of us avoided the vicinity of the lab at all costs. … Enough of the negatives. In my uni’s ComSci dept., major classes were all in English; however, since it was quite a new mandate to convert the required courses in English, almost all professors were not yet comfortable with teaching in English (except 2 profs I had). In our department, it seemed that lab work was generally more important than course work, especially since all professors knew that all grad students were busy working in the lab. They almost always didn’t give us a flunking grade as long as you attend class and scored not too low on the tests (which I didn’t really like; there was no way for me to know if I did good or bad on the subject). To qualify for graduation, we needed to publish two papers, get at least A- in three major courses, and produce a panel-approved thesis.My Korean (and 2 ethnically-Korean Chinese) labmates were what made two years of grad school life a little more bearable for me. At first they all looked like they didn’t know what to do with me (they thought I didn’t speak and understand Korean); they warmed up to me after a few weeks. I actually brought home a severe headache every day during the first week for trying to concentrate and understand every single word they were saying. I learned after that not to force myself to digest it all and to catch just the important words/phrases. I owe so much to my two closest labmates/friends for explaining everything patiently to me every time there’s something I don’t understand in the ongoing conversation. (These two were the ones who had the biggest responsibilities in the lab; they were also the ones who quit after 1 and a half years because they just couldn’t take it anymore—they kinda crippled the lab by doing so and I think prof mulled over his actions for a few days at that time. Nevertheless, we’re still very close friends until now. Indeed, nothing beats very bad experiences in getting people to become the best of friends.) We would all be drinking together after lab hours almost every week till late (even on weekdays, which was very unusual for me at first) to complain to each other about our professor and our situation in general. We were the only ones who completely understood each other’s situation after all. For a foreigner like me, this kind of circumstance was definitely not normal; however, I was surprised to realize that to my labmates, this kind of situation, even if they think it’s not normal, was something that they should endure while in grad school (which still makes it kind of an accepted thing). What really alarmed me after a while was the realization that they seem to be gradually believing that they were stupid, incompetent, unskilled fools—what they kept on hearing from the professor almost every day. I had to always remind them that they are definitely not stupid, that they should believe in themselves. It also took me a year or more to get them to listen and realize that our situation was definitely not something they should quietly endure; that it’s basically human degradation by verbal abuse everyday, overwork with very little pay (the prof gave a student around $300 for one 3-6 month project; it was not an issue for me who had KGSP and the prof barely gave me projects anyway, but for my labmates who were taking huge loans to pay for tuition, it was a big deal—it meant they had to take 3–5 projects at the same time to cover for tuition and their living expenses), and very unhealthy working hours/days per week. Through my conversations with them, it was very enlightening to come across different perspectives on various topics; my beliefs and their beliefs clashed most of the time and were questioned over and over in almost every drinking and non-drinking session. (This is why Korea has a huge drinking culture—this is how people cope with so much stress.) I know very well that I am extremely lucky to have them as my labmates back then, considering that they would have very easily been people who didn’t give a d*mn on what a lone foreigner might be doing in a Korean lab. They were the people I spent the most time with everyday during grad school (yes, we were required to go to the lab even on semestral breaks) and I treasure my friendships with them very much.Other fellow scholar friends’ situations: one friend was in another SKY uni’s international studies program and her routine was almost the same as my roomie’s. Another friend in the same uni as me was taking Master’s in Civil Eng’g. but unlike me, was a little luckier with his professor. The only downside I heard from him was that he wasn’t able to meet his professor often and that his prof seemed like he didn’t care about him. He graduated without much problems. Yet another friend was in the same uni as us, and his case was quite different—at first he was telling us that his professor was awesome and that he was not at all hard to talk to (not like mine). However, more than 6 months to a year into his PhD he told us that it was starting to get really frustrating to talk to his prof and then one day, he and his prof got into a heated debate about something related to his research, both of them were not relenting, the prof got mad and told him that if he is not going to do what the prof tells him to do, he’d better get out of the lab (if my memory serves me right, it was along the lines of, “In my lab I am the king and if you’re not going to do as I say, get out of my kingdom”). Then our friend did just that—he packed all his stuff and never went back to the lab. It turned out that the prof’s side was wrong and our friend was right all along; his prof apologized to him (I don’t know how) but it was already too late; he had already decided to go back to Germany. (He’s now in a very prestigious university in Europe.) Another friend taking her PhD in chem eng’g outside Seoul also has a prof with a very huge ego, is foul-mouthed, and mandates long lab hours like my prof; she eventually breaks off with said prof after a heated argument with him during her thesis semester and went to stay for another semester to finish her thesis with a different prof in her department. Another friend who studied Master’s in computer eng’g outside Seoul had a prof who “didn’t care what happened to them and took all the scholarship money”. (There were a lot of corruption rumors surrounding profs; it was a good thing the profs didn’t have control over KGSP scholarship money.) Among our friends who were part of a university lab, two were the luckiest ones; one was taking com eng’g at one of the SKY uni’s and we didn’t much hear bad comments from him; the other was taking PhD in food science and she had the nicest Korean prof I’ve heard in a while. She expects to graduate this semester.Recalling all that was quite exhausting… It was like living it all over again and some parts were just too painful I was tearing up… However, I wanted to paint a realistic picture of the life I had when I was studying in Korea. I also wanted to take this chance to finally write about it (this is the first time I wrote about this) and get this off my chest.I hope I was able to show you some of the possible situations you may encounter if ever you decide to pursue your graduate studies in Korea. Clearly, there are two very extreme situations that may come your way. The biggest takeaway is to always do your research. The decision will always be up to you.I wish you luck in all your endeavors.

The assumption behind using emojis is that they are a proxy for non-verbals cues, which aid in reality to understand and deliver thoughts and communication.Since emojis often bear graphic resemblances to real faces, the understanding has often been that there would be no problems in interpreting them, and that the sender and the recipient would agree on such interpretation. However, as André Müller in his answer to this question has pointed out, even before we could get fixated on mutual similar interpretation of emojis, emojis differ in their depiction based on particular devices. That just complicates matters. I for example, view this emoji:​as a grimace, or gritting teeth. I'm more likely to use it (and interprete it as such!) accordingly. Seeing how the original grinning emoji was transformed to the one shown above, made me realize that possibly, the sender meant something else. Based on the context of how I personally interpret, express and understand emotions and affect, this emoji is way beyond what it sets out to implicate.The interpretation of emojis is definitely dependent on social media platforms and particular devices.And on more things.The Universality of EmotionsA long-standing debate in the social sciences has been premised on whether facial expressions mean the same thing in all cultures. Although happiness, surprise, fear, anger, contempt,disgust and sadness are usually recognized by all human beings, cultural differences notwithstanding, Ekman and Friesen (1987) emphasize that there are cultural differences in displaying of particular facial expressions and interpretation. Further, even within the same culture, there could be age-related discrepancy in reading facial expressions as this study depicts.It is therefore not surprising that meaning behind emojis would not be interpreted in the same way by all users. As for example, this widely understood emoji:​indicates a jovial expression, to signify someone is joking or when people do not really mean things too seriously. This is based on the assumption that putting the tongue-out signified a juvenile, monkey-business kind of thing; In India, before languages of emojis came to be universally understood and affecting understanding of expressions, putting the tongue out was a disrespectful gesture.I had to explain the above-mentioned emoji to my mother when she asked me what it means when I had sent it out habitually over whatsapp a few years back.So, this means that even within same device platforms, the interpretation of emojis could differ. The difference in interpretation could or could not come from difference in recognizing affectCultural differences:This paper [math][[/math][math]1[/math][math]][/math] talks about cultural differences in style and usage of emojis. It is however interesting to ponder upon that while labeling an emoji as “correct” or aligned with the mainstream usage, the researchers who are taking a call in this regard, are also subject to the same cultural influences in interpretation of emojis.Since cultural differences are often spoken in the language of East versus West, which is largely arbitrary and just a facile way to systematize things, the academic discourse is often compelled to follow that route of division in order to fall in line, rather than be viewed as an aberration (and perish in channels of non-linearity or randomness).The main contention as presented in this paper[math][[/math][math]1[/math][math]][/math] is that horizontal emojis focus on the mouth while vertical emojis focus on the eye region. This seems to influence how particular emojis are used, since western cultures tend to rely on the mouth region to intreprete facial cues, while eastern cultures which do not advocate an open show of emotions emphasize reading the eyes in the task of interpretation of non-verbal cues.​Source: [5]The East versus West division is however chiseled out by Park et al (2013) who find that the usage of emojis and emoticons depend on the identity of the sender and transpire socio-cultural norms. The researchers had studied usage of emoticons on Twitter from the time-period of 2006-2009 and found that while geography has an effect in determining styles of emoticons used, language has a greater impact: users of Philippines and Indonesia who are fluent speakers of English, used more horizontal styles emojis just like English-speaking countries.​Source: [5]The figure above depicts correlation of language with styles of emojis. The researchers also note that while Korea and Japan use more horizontal emoticons in tweets of their own language, while tweeting in English, users from those countries would use more vertical tweets.Cultural discourse, associated with language seems to have a significant effect on how emojis are used and interpreted.Cultural differences Ironed out?An interesting finding of Park et al (2013) turning over the East versus West debate on its head, is that European users were found to be multi-cultural, at least as far as their usage in emojis were concerned, in that they used both vertical and horizontal emojis liberally.Even within the same culture, there could be age-related discrepancies in the use and interpretation of emojis as Kelly (2015) illustrates. Studying usage of emoticons in a dataset of 90 students (aged 15-19 years) in Stockholm, she found that meanings of emojis differ based on the age of the sender, type of relationship between the sender and the recipient, as well as relationship mood of the person.The Internet has leveled out many cultural influences since use of emojis tend to go beyond culturally-mediated boundaries of interpretation and usage. Many of these studies being made on young persons also disable looking into how emojis are interpreted by generations who are not aware of the language of globalized affect.We might be able to change the colour of the thumbs we send across multiple devices and think cultural inclusion is accommodated thereby. But that part is just cosmetic, for lack of a better word, since use and interpretation of emojis tend to vary by culture, language, within a culture, by subcultures and so on.Purpose of emojisA very relevant point in this context becomes when are emojis used? For what purposes? Are they used for the purpose we understand them--that is as a proxy for sending non-verbal cues--or do they have other targets?Kelly (2015) found that 70% of people in her study used emojis to make the text easier to understand. Markman and Oshima (2007) had similar findings, in that Americans were found to use emojis and emoticons to primarily establish punctuation, signature and closing of sentence, while the Japanese would often use them to depict facial expressions. The authors connect this tendency with socio-cultural norms to say certain things--for example while Americans would often say "I love you!" to many different kinds of people under multiple contexts, the Japanese are more likely to reserve saying this in all contexts--they would say it more in context of romantic relationships.This study looking at how people from Oman use emojis in Whatsapp group say that:Emojis do not mainly serve as indicators of users’ emotions; rather they serve many other communicative functions. They can serve as indication of approval or disapproval of others’ messages, responses to expressions of thanks and compliments, conversational openings and closings, indications of celebration and excitement, and indications of the fulfillment of a requested task, contextualization cues, substitutes for lexical items, and indexical signs. The analysis also shows how through repetition over a long period of time, a particular emoji takes on meanings that it might not have in any other contexts outside the WhatsApp group in which it was used.Source: FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF EMOJIS IN WHATSAPP INTERACTION AMONG OMANISMoreover, certain "innocent" looking emojis could be used differently, based on cultural meanings associated with it. Recent case in point being the eggplant/brinjal emoji:​While the above-shown emoji was banned by Instagram to stop sexual harassment, anybody could argue that when someone is thinking sexual harassment by seeing a vegetable, the onus for (mis) interpretation lies with the recipient.So what does all of these mean?Greater convergence in designing emojis is the need of the day.That greater cultural inclusion while designing emojis would enable greater use of them, and this needs to go beyond having the option to change the skin colour of emojis.Similar rendering of emojis across multiple devices would aid in reduction of their misinterpretation.Some feedback option to see whether emojis delivered, rendered the same meaning as intended by the sender would also lessen the multiple games of interpretation.Cultural modelling would help enable how particular emojis are used, i.e. negatively, positively, to signify punctuation or to express emotions.Even with all the careful constructions of emojis, since they are visual depictions of faces, the margin of error in reading them will always exist.When we smile, we don't always do it because we are happy. We smile to mask our real emotions. And masks make it difficult to decode the real face.Source:1. Quintana, L.(2014). Cultural differences in style and usage of emoticons in computer-mediated communication.2. Miller, H.,Thebault-Spieker, J., Chang, S., Johnson, I., Terveen, L., & Hecht, B.“Blissfully happy” or “ready to fight”: Varying Interpretations of Emoji.3. Kelly, C.(2015). Do you know what I mean >:(: A linguistic study of the understanding of emoticons and emojis in text messages.4. Ekman,P., et al. (1987). Universals and Cultural Differences in the Judgments of Facial Expressions of Emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,53(4), 712-717.5. Park, J., Barash, V., Fink, C., & Cha, M.(2013, June). Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emoticons Across Cultures. In ICWSM.6. Markman, K. M., and Oshima, S. 2007. Pragmatic play? some possible functions of English emoticons and Japanese kaomoji in computer-mediated discourse. In Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference.7. Fridlund, A. J. 1991. Evolution and facial action in reflex, social motive, and paralanguage. Biological Psychology 32:3–1008. Instagram ban on emoji has sexters searching for fruity alternatives9. Smile, You’re Speaking Emoji: The Rapid Evolution of a Wordless Tongue

Thanks for A2A, Vaibhav.Test Series plays a key role in sharpening the practice and refining one’s preparation. To achieve a Descent Good rank in GATE it is quintessential to be mindful of some factors. I am going to list them as followings. They are,Conceptual Knowledge BaseA Hefty amount of Sincere PracticeTemperamentPatienceA Test Series is a roadmap to consolidate all the pillars of GATE Preparation.Conceptual Knowledge Base is enhance by regular Rivision and when one solves the problems of test series, when he solves a particular question, it further tightens his grit on the concept associated with that question consequently enhancing knowledge base.Practice is heavily achieved through joining test series. There are 65–70 Q's in a single test of test series which is a balanced mixture is of all type of problems that could be asked in GATE paper. Assuming that a test series comprises of 40 tests totally, so provided you go through even half of test series, you will have of practicing over 1500 Q's around which is more than enough for serious candidate.Some people often engrossed with a versatile myth that “ one has to through 10000–15000 MCQ's in order to achieve a skintiling performance in GATE, which IAS absolutely wrong, it is not a paper of “ Junior Engineer “ or “Rat's Race” . You must have a tight grip over your conceptual knowledge & having a moderate amount of practice of 1500Q’s of all type is more than enough .Absolutely, There is no threshold limit of preparation. You must and have to believe on what you have done.Try to have a habit of giving tests in a set time limit with full of dedication and concentration, as it'll prepare you to be ready for that Final Day. These habits in course of time will inculcate the pinch of temperament in yourself as you learn to choose the scoring questions and become master in avoiding questions taking more time and less scoring. On the Final Day , this will ensure your blockbuster performance in exam.Whenever you go through mistakes committed by you in practice test, you will automatically learn to contain the patience as you will notice that many of questions in which you faltered were not the result your intelligence or lack of knowledge but Lack of Patience.I advise you to join test series of Made Easy if you are an engineering student.There are many type of tests i.e Basic Level Topic Based, Advanced Level Topic based, Full Syllabus test etc.Prepare in a way that you give 1 Test in an interval of 2–3 days before 90 days of exam.Give all type of tests, you can avoid some tests in case you have extra Ordinary preparation in that particular subject.Go through basic level Tests (Atleast) of all topics. You can avoid advanced level Tests (but not all).Buy a Book containing last 20 Year GATE problems and try to recognise the pattern of questions asked and prepare in tune of that pattern if you notice that problems from particular topic are coming in regular interval with a good difficulty level. Then go through advanced level test of that topic. Solving questions of good difficulty will therefore increase your confidence level and may add an extra concept in your mindbook.Try to give Atleast 2/3 FUll Syllabus Test.Complete your syllabus Atleast 20 days before exam and invest next 19 days In Sheer Rivision and thorough practice.See, There is a section of Aptitude , English and Engineering Mathematics apart from Technical part. You may skip advance level test in Aptitude section. You can practice some advance level moderate to high level difficulty questions in Egineering Mathematics ( becoz some times tough questions have been asked in this section).Now, the Terrifying but miniscule part of paper English. (Yes , it is. I have seenany students having superb technical competence buys devoided of having the same in English). don't worry at all as it contributes to maximum 5 out of 100 marks. Go through some basic questions of English grammar in addition to solving Past year problems as there is no scope of innovation in problems asked in these section. So it will be prepared after some sort of efforts. ChillaxIf even putting all efforts you are not feeling confident in English ( Like “ Beta, Tumse naa ho jayega” ) , don't worry at all skip that and forget . you have even 95 marks in your hand if you score 90 out of these 95 , you r going to become Topper of exam in your stream.Least butt not the least, this is what, like taking essence of everything you do to get a good rank in GATE . Whenever you complete each and every test , you must go through self evaluation from solutions provided by you . Note anything which you were not able to recall when u needed it during test and any concept that you didn't know prior to start of exam. Note down the question which took more time , try to find the reason. it occurred either due to lack of Patience or any formulaIf possible, make some research from the notes prepared by you and devise a short trick. Soon you will brim with confidence due to collection of weapons like these short tricks in your mind.So in this way test series will lubricate and reduce Any type of friction that come in way of your preparation.Finally I want to say “ Burn the midnight oil as much as you can “ You have to burn oil smartly so that it goes for long time .ALL DE BEST to Aspirants.Thanks