A Little About Korean Universities

Getting into university means so much in Korea, it means everything some would say. When you go to apply for a job the name of the university you attended is the most important of all the qualifications you might have.

The "good" universities are almost all in Seoul, with just a few located in other parts of the country. If you can't get into one of these colleges you can basically forget about gaining employment with one of the top Korean companies. However there are other opportunities.

The university where I taught is not considered one of the good ones. It is outside of Seoul. Most of the students I've talked to didn't want to go there. So why did they go? Their college entrance exam score was low. A few of them went for a certain major which had a good reputation, however most of them went because they didn't have many other options.

Having said that, I have to say that the university was nice overall, at least as I saw it. Unlike the students I didn't leave the area most weekends.

Korean kids actually work harder in school before going to college than after getting there. High school is very hard. Kids can't do much besides study, eat or sleep. University is easier. Students think it's normal to skip classes. Grading is much easier. Many students are involved in events on campus. During those times they often miss their classes. One student who missed many classes and then ended up dropping my course told me that it was due to being made captain of the cheerleaders. I said to him, so cheerleading is a good enough reason to miss class? Many students would continue to take my classes and just bring me notes which their professors would sign saying they were involved in events certain days. And I got a few sick notes! If a student went to the doctor the same day we had a class, they could bring me a note and be excused. I got so many of these notes though that I wondered if students deliberately chose to go to the doctor on class days.

And there were times of course when even though they went to the doctor or had some event on campus, they still could have easily gotten to class, but the general rule was to excuse them. One day a group of boys who had a really bad attendance record told me they missed class because of getting flu shots. I think I said to them something like I didn't think that would take the whole day.