May 13th Thursday Meeting Topic

[neojang]

Korea University dropout was merely a lonely daydreamer

Today, I read an article about a female student who voluntarily withdrew from Korea University, one of Korea’s most prestigious schools. She believed university life is an endless, and hopeless, cycle of preparing to work for big corporations.

Some believe she is really brave and should be complimented. However, as a university student in Korea, her drop out seems more like the lonely scream of daydreamer than one student’s meaningful action. I feel this way because of her exposed weaknesses, such as ignorance about other people, her self-contradiction and her being out of touch with reality.

First and the foremost, she ignored those who are enthusiastic about their work as students. As she said, university students in Korea are now obsessed with building up qualifications other than a high GPA. She believes many students are stuck in the middle of this agony, striving to beat others rather than satisfying themselves.

However, not all students go after others. Some still believe all the experiences they have in school will make them better people. And others work for their own professional or life-long goals. This means there are enthusiastic people with full and meaningful lives.

Even when we look at job applicants to huge corporations, we acknowledge they have their own goals, beliefs and motivation. They did not apply just to beat others who wanted the same jobs they did. If she really believed all university students are building up their qualifications just so they don’t lag behind others, and that they do not have any real goals for their lives, she should have reconsidered.

Second, she has the contradiction of her own behavior. She believed Korean universities are pressuring students to build up their qualifications, not delivering pure academic knowledge. But interestingly, her major was business administration, which specialized in business settings and practical knowledge. If she wanted to pursue real academic studies, she needed to look at other areas, too. As a student of political science, I do not think our school is a machine producing students who are eligible for jobs. If there is an atmosphere like that, it was made by students, not the university itself.

Since students of social sciences are “learning for learning’s sake,” except for some students taking business courses, many students still study diligently under their professors. Also students taking business courses are doing this for their specific goals, not just because of peer-pressure or pressure from the university. If she knew this, maybe she could have another chance rather than dropping out school.

Last but not least, dropping out of school means giving up on reality, not changing it. Reality is not easily changed, even with the efforts of many people. Although a lot of people believe they have to root out the Korean business world’s emphasis on where one went to college, people not only in Korea but also in other countries emphasize educational background and graduating from prestigious schools.

Students are also crying out against raising university tuition, but still it goes up every year. Despite this little effort, it is just a “little” effort, not decisive action that changes reality.

Sometimes, even high social status does not ensure one can change reality. In that sense, her dropping out from school is merely immature. She has given up her chance to really fight against reality.

But if she is socially respected, and has as much influence as others seem to give her, she may have another chance to give “a little but rare change” to society. And that social status, sadly speaking, comes from higher education in the real world.

To conclude, this drop out has the possibility to remain merely the action of a lonely screamer who ignored other enthusiastic working people, contradicted herself from the beginning of her act and missed a chance to really fight against reality by giving up.

Of course, one Korean student’s drop out makes many other students think twice, but we need to consider why they stay in university.

Q1)  What do you think of her, Brave or Inconsiderate?

Q2)  Do or Did you like your colledge/university? tell me the reason?

Q3)  What do you remember about your colledge/university?

Q4)  What are or were good and bad when you are/were in school days?

Q5)  What is/was your major? tell me a little bit about your major?

Q6)  What is the most impressive thing in your school days?

Q7)  Do you wanna study more? if so, especially which field or major?

Q8)  What do you think the major problems are for university education?

Q9)  Are there any good solutions for these?

Q10)Do you know any good or impressive systems you wanna reccommand in overseas?

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Hungry for success

“The people of Joseon cannot modernize on their own.” These were the thoughtless words of Fukuzawa Yukichi, a Japanese writer and philosopher. He is the face on the 10,000 yen note and the founder of Keio University. He was also a supporter, financially and idealistically, of the Enlightenment Party, which included Kim Ok-gyun, Park Young-ho and Yu Kil-chun.

“Nine out of 10 people wear white clothes, and men wear hats.” This was what Korea looked like to American Burton Holmes, who came here with his camera in 1901. The “nation of white,” in the eyes of the West, consisted of people dressed in white with topknots or traditional hats, moving slowly with a tobacco pipe in their mouth. Holmes compared Japan’s invasion of the country to “cutting off the topknots and tobacco pipes.”

During liberation and the Korean War, the Times of London said, “Korean democracy is like hoping for a rose to blossom in a garbage bin.”

In 1986, however, French civilization critic Guy Sorman wrote about how surprised he was by Korea’s great leap in development in “The New Wealth of Nations.” He said, “It leapt up to rank ninth from 60th out of 74 developing countries in just 25 years.” The implication was that Korea was still a developing country.

British and Japanese newspapers that once carried similar reports have recently been saying there is something to learn from Korea. A column in The Financial Times said: “South Korea is no longer the underdog.” It went on to say that Korea’s economy “is practically as big as India’s even with a population less than one-20th the size. It exports more goods than the U.K.” It says that although Korea was on a par with Saharan Africa in the 1960s, it is now hot on the heels of the United Kingdom.

A Japanese financial newspaper goes even further: “Let us learn from Korean companies.”

The Vancouver Winter Olympics was a turning point. The world record earned by Kim Yu-na echoes the blinding success of economic development in Korea. Even the Japanese sports world is saying that their athletes should have Kim’s mental stamina, and that Japan’s lack of spirit and bad economy are the reasons for “no gold.” Japan has already benchmarked our Taeneung national training facility.

We should be proud, but we must not be lulled by the idea that we now rank first on the global stage. The Korean word for romance, nangman, originated from the Japanese pronunciation of the French word, as interpreted by Fukuzawa. He also created the word “freedom,” or jayu, but he once thought about using Chinese characters to express the word, which would have resulted in the difficult word cheonhauhmyun.

Korea still has a lot to learn from the United Kingdom and Japan. We have not yet had a taste of the success they have. As Steve Jobs would say, we need to stay hungry.

[Ally]

토픽 올려 주셔서 감사해요^^

[Jina]

음.. 제 주변의 거의 모든 대학생들이 이런 문제로 고민하지 않나 싶어요. 열심히 생각해 보고 가야겠어요.ㅋ 토픽 감사해요^^