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If you plan to live in off-campus studio/apartment with your own kitchen, you will most likely cook some of your own meals. It's possible to cook when you live in the dorms or goshiwon-style housing, but your access to storage for your food might be limited and your kitchen space will be shared so it might be easier to eat in the on-campus cafeterias or at a restaurant close to campus. Although most universities in South Korea don't offer meal plans for their cafeterias, you will only pay a couple of dollars per meal. And eating out in South Korea, compared to the United States, can be quite affordable. 김밥천국 (Gim-bap Cheon-guk/Gimbap Heaven) is a popular chain for cheap Korean food, and is especially popular amongst college students so you will often find one near your campus. For example, for a roll of tuna gimbap (참치김밥*) and bowl of soft tofu stew (순두부찌개) will cost you ₩11,000 (~$9), and all of the common Korean side dishes come with your meal and are unlimited from the salad bar.
In comparison to eating at restaurants, buying groceries can be quite expensive, especially if you want to buy produce. Produce, especially fruit, can be very expensive in South Korea. You have to be very aware of seasons for fruits. Out of season, I saw a pack of strawberries going for around ₩20,000 (~$15), but when they were in-season they were only like ₩5,000 (~$4). Though, it's pretty easy to know what fruits are in-season because all of the cafes will be promoting drinks and baked goods with the fruit. In the summertime, everyone is selling watermelon juice (so good on a hot day). But for groceries in general, there are a few ways to get groceries in South Korea:
Large department grocery stores: These will be stores like HomePlus (similar to Walmart or Target) or Emart (not to be confused with the convenience store Emart24). These stores can be more expensive for groceries, but if you shop close to closing these stores have a lot of discounts to get rid of food that didn't sell that day.
Local supermarkets: These are smaller grocery stores in neighborhoods. They'll have a smaller selection, but things might be cheaper than the department stores. Look out for words like 마트 or 슈퍼(마켓) on your maps app for these stores.
Online: Can be the easiest way to get groceries, especially if they're aren't any grocery stores nearby and you don't want to carry groceries up Seoul's intense hills (I lived on the top of hill with limited public transportation, so I opted for online grocery shopping most of the time). This option will require a Korean bank account, but if you are staying in South Korea for more than a term you should get one anyways. Common places to shop for groceries online are Coupang (similar to Amazon), GMarket (similar to Amazon. This option does actually allow for foreign cards), and Market Curly (마켓컬리). While I was living in South Korea, this seemed like a trendy option since I saw a lot of people in my neighborhood using it. I used Market Kurly for most of my groceries. There isn't an English version, so you will need to know the vocab for the food you want and if you can't understand a lot of Korean you can translate the page with a Google Translate plugin. I ended up using Market Kurly because I liked that they delivered in the middle of the night (depending on when you ordered you could get your groceries that night), so when I woke up I could grab my boxes of groceries and easily put them away. They also have a good variety of Korean groceries, foreign groceries, produce, and household goods, and they are decently priced and often have sales. I found sites like Coupang and GMarket quite overwhelming since they sell groceries and everything else you can think of, so I appreciated having a wide variety of things without it being overwhelming.
Traditional markets: Places like 남재문시장 or any of the other many 시장 that are around Seoul. Best for getting cheap produce. You can also find clothing and other things for pretty cheap. You will need to bring cash with you to buy from sellers.
Trucks on the side of the road: When you're walking around Seoul, you'll often see trucks on the curb selling produce. This and traditional markets are the best way to get produce for the best price. You will need cash to buy from here.
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