Diana Karabegovich spent a few months studying at Kim Il-Sung University in North Korea, one of the most isolated and tightly controlled countries in the world. Her account offers a rare, student-level view of daily routines, friendships and restrictions that most foreign visitors never see. It also sits alongside well-documented human rights concerns inside the country.
How a Student Exchange Reached Pyongyang
Karabegovich, who studied international economic relations at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said she received two scholarships as part of her program. One sent her to Kim Il-Sung University in North Korea, and the other to Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea. She completed both.
Her Russian college covered tuition and travel, while Kim Il-Sung University provided housing and meals. She obtained a visa through the North Korean Embassy in Moscow after the university supplied the required confirmations.
A Demanding Academic Schedule
Karabegovich described a structured week. Students attended classes six days a week, with two sessions daily from Monday to Friday, focused on reading and speaking. Saturday brought one speaking class, and Sunday was a day off.
Outside class, she said students completed homework and spent free time socializing, visiting cafés and restaurants, playing volleyball and table tennis, swimming and ice-skating. Hosts also arranged excursions into the country's mountainous landscape.
Freedoms Students Have That Tourists Do Not
Karabegovich argued that students experience more independence than tourists. Visitors typically must remain with a group and a guide, while students could move around on their own. That difference is significant in a country where independent travel is, for practical purposes, largely unavailable.
Access for U.S. citizens is even more limited. American passports are not valid for travel to, in or through North Korea without special validation, which is generally granted only in narrow circumstances such as certain journalistic or humanitarian trips.
What the Experience Does Not Reveal
Karabegovich's memories of warm hospitality exist alongside documented repression. Human rights organizations have reported arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture and executions, and a recent report by a Seoul-based NGO said some people were sentenced to death for consuming foreign cultural content, including K-pop.
A student's perspective, however personal, cannot capture the conditions faced by ordinary citizens, and reliable data on poverty in the country remains scarce. Her account is best read as one individual's experience within a tightly managed environment rather than a full picture of daily life there.