Do you believe students in Korea normally study over 13 hours a day and they sleep less than 6 hours? In an old Korean proverb, there is a phrase ‘rising in the world and gaining fame’ which means study hard and become great. Based on this thought, Korean parents force their children to study and force them to have jobs such as a doctor and lawyer, even though their children suffer from severe competition. Some students finish their 12-year-mathematic course even before they finish sixth grade. Parents always want their children to be a front-runner in such a brutal college admission race. That is the reason parents force their children, and students cannot avoid competition. Including this problem, there are three defects in Korean education compared to American education, which worsens severe competition among students: students cannot choose their university with their future goals; in selecting students, Korean universities emphasize college entrance exam results than other factors such as extracurricular activities, recommendation letter and self-introduction letter; every majors are ranked in the first place in three famous universities.
First, from elementary school, teachers educate their students to go to so-called ‘SKY’; a new terminology from first characters of three famous universities in Korea: Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei. This is incomprehensible in American logic which prefers students to enter a suitable college depending on their tendencies. As much as teachers and parents imply a student’s success is guaranteed in SKY universities, conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai even prefer employees from those colleges. Teachers, by bringing up such company preferences, teachers arouse motivation for studying and academic competition, but it is serious pressure for students. However, American companies do not have such preferences according to a school’s name, and American teachers also do not stress Harvard or Ivy League schools to their students as well. Therefore, students have freedom in selecting their colleges by considering distance between their house and college and whether their dream college is suitable to them or not. For example, in Korea, there is some university specialized in engineering like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called KAIST. KAIST is as great as Seoul National University (SNU), and for becoming an engineer KAIST is better choice. However, when students get acceptances from both schools, students would prefer SNU because it is slightly more famous. Second of all, since SKY universities emphasize a college entrance exam result more than other factors in selecting students, students need to score almost perfect in the exam. To be perfect in every subject, they always have additional studies even after school, and, Korean parents spend vast money on tutoring. Americans commonly say that the American college tuition is unaffordable. However, private tutoring fees in Korea are also unimaginably unaffordable as well. Mostly, for one subject, it costs 1000$-1500$ per month, and most parents employ three tutors for three major subjects in entering college: English, Korean and Math. Monthly, It costs 3000$ at least. When including these expenses in students 10th to 12th grades, this is equivalent to American college tuition to some extent. On account of the fact that some Korean parents spend so much money on tutoring, those parents who cannot afford this amount of money per month feel abnormal compare to others. On the contrary, in the American educational system, the government gives loan and grant, and university gives significant scholarships to students as well. In Korea, while the government assists student in a college education, they do not have support in expensive private tutoring. Therefore, the Korean educational system is more expensive compared to American educational system. Lastly, unlike American colleges, prestigious Korean colleges dominate all the majors. For example, in America, Harvard University is considered by many as the most prestigious and honorable college, but this general perception is not true for every major in Harvard. University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) Warton School is top ranked for economics and management; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is renowned for top engineering school; for law Columbia College in New York City is also famous. While American colleges have their specialties and share dominant majors through colleges, Korean colleges do not. Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University are dominant in every major. Even among these, Seoul National University is considered for all the best majors. This phenomenon causes students to want to go to attend Seoul National University (SNU). There are students who receive acceptance from Harvard but they could not go SNU, since competition for entering SNU is severe and stressful. According to one research, only 1 percent out of 600,000 students can enter SNU. Some students also take a year off for more study to enter SNU even though they have been accepted by Korea and Yonsei Universities. This causes Korean students to be overly obsessive with their diplomas and colleges’ names, so they feel like they are losers when they cannot attend those universities, and in the worse cases, they commit suicide. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OECD) report in happiness of students in member nations, Korean students’ happiness was the lowest. A while ago, a very heartbreaking story happened in Korea. There was a student in a prestigious private school, yet, his mom always blamed his son due to his poor grades. Hence, that son studied really hard and achieved first prize from his final. Nevertheless, although he accomplished first prize, he committed suicide with a memo on his transcript with number 1, which read “is it enough?”. We are individuals, not machines for studying. We have our own personalities and we have rights to pursue our happiness; still the Korean education system oppresses Korean students and deprives individuality in contrast to America. For what purpose do we go to university? For what purpose do we try to become great? Those are for our happiness, not to make us compete against each other and step on our friends. I hope the educational system in Korea would be reformed like the American education system which leads their students to become happy and accomplish their goals.
1 Comment
Justin
11/27/2016 05:22:11 pm
It is interesting to learn more about that hardships of students other than American students. Makes me wonder how easy it is here.
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Jacob (Chan Woo Kim)
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