In this blog post, we will consider whether qualifications, foreign languages, and internship experience are really necessary for employment in a society where competition is fierce.
As a fourth-year student at a four-year engineering university, most students who want to continue working in their field of study are probably very busy right now in April and May. This is because they are busy preparing for midterm exams and presentations at school, as well as worrying about job applications (or graduate school admissions), and dealing with other complicated matters. In addition, students in their mid-20s who have been in the military or on leave from school may be thinking about financial planning and marriage, and the pressure to build up their qualifications for these purposes can be considerable. Here, “specs” is an abbreviation of the English word “specification” and is a new term that refers to the totality of external conditions that a person can secure, such as educational background, grades, TOEIC scores, qualifications, and overseas training or internship experience, which have recently become important factors for job seekers.
However, students in their final year at Seoul National University do not seem to be participating in the so-called “spec building” that most college students across the country are eagerly pursuing. They seem to be making only the minimum effort required to graduate. In fact, when they try to study for a certification at school, they sometimes hear comments such as, “Hey, are you a Seoul National University student studying for a certification?” In the past, in the 1970s and 1980s, admission to and graduation from Seoul National University was a kind of gateway to success, a free pass that covered all qualifications. No matter which company you joined, as a Seoul National University graduate, you had the confidence that you could do well as long as you worked hard, and with the expectations of those around you, you could dream of becoming an executive of the company if you continued to work there. As a result, even though I majored in Korean literature, it was not uncommon for people to get jobs at oil refineries.
Even in my department, the Department of Architecture at Seoul National University, companies used to go out of their way to recruit as many new employees from Seoul National University as possible. Company executives would visit the school to hold recruitment seminars, and seniors who had already joined the company would visit and often treat their juniors to dinner. They even held company interviews at the school. I heard that companies would postpone interviews and exams if students’ schedules did not match, and that students would collectively refuse to join a company when the number of new hires was limited, causing embarrassment to the company.
Of course, recruitment events are still held at the university from time to time, and dinner parties with senior students are also held, but the problem is that most Seoul National University students take this treatment for granted. No, rather than taking it for granted, I think they are not very grateful. (Usually, when a company announces a recruitment event, interested students come to the company’s headquarters to receive training and ask questions, which means that job seekers in rural areas have to make time in their busy schedules to come to Seoul. Of course, since they worked hard in middle and high school to get into this university, it could be said that the benefits they currently enjoy are only natural. However, when I compare myself to other university students who are taking time off from school to prepare for employment by improving their grades, English skills, and obtaining certifications, and when I look at Seoul National University, which still has a long way to go to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s leading universities, I realize that there are some things that our students need to understand.
Compared to the 1970s, when the Korean economy was growing rapidly, the current employment rate has declined, but when compared to students at other universities that are not medical or pharmacy schools or top four-year universities in Seoul, it is still true that Seoul National University students have a somewhat relaxed attitude. So, let’s take a look at why, when, and how Seoul National University students came to have less concern about finding employment. First is self-confidence (or self-esteem). They know that their efforts will yield results. In addition, their learning ability and comprehension skills, which are backed by their efforts, give them a sense of confidence that they can do anything, which makes them more confident about finding employment than other students. In other words, they believe that if they work hard, it is only a matter of time before they find employment.
Next, because the people around them are more aware of their abilities than they are themselves, Seoul National University graduates are assigned to key positions in the company after joining, and when juniors from the same university join later, they take a keen interest in them and help them advance, so that Seoul National University graduates continue to occupy key positions and become “successful.” Just being a Seoul National University graduate is an honor for the family, and it makes them the envy of those around them. With that, they have a more concrete vision of a bright future than others. This is because it takes relatively less effort to pass the document screening and get a job than their friends who graduated from local universities and are “armed” with English, qualifications, and overseas internships, simply because they are “Seoul National University graduates.”
Of course, everyone who entered Seoul National University studied harder than anyone else before getting here. However, just because you entered this school does not mean that your whole life will be easy. No, this is just the beginning. I have seen some students who worked harder than anyone else to get here, but after entering, they live a lazy life as if they have already achieved all of their goals in life. Having worked hard to get into Seoul National University, one of the best universities in Korea, it is only natural to enhance one’s value by gaining various experiences, studying English, and obtaining certifications, as this is like “adding wings to a tiger.”
Certifications can be seen as practical training for entering society, rather than the foundation, extension, or advanced course of one’s major. While most theoretical knowledge is gained through major studies at university, certifications require practical knowledge. Foreign language study is not just a certificate to be presented at graduation, but a foundation for global companies in the age of globalization. Overseas training and internships can be valuable experiences that broaden one’s horizons and enable one to expand one’s horizons to South Korea and the rest of the world.
The third floor of the Seoul National University Central Library is open 24 hours a day for Seoul National University students. The lights on the other floors go out at 11 p.m., accompanied by an announcement, and I have remembered this announcement ever since I first came here.
“Dear students, thank you for your hard work today. I hope that your efforts today will be of great help to many people in the future.”
I hope that all Seoul National University students will study hard, keeping these words in mind, and strive to become students who are not only working for themselves and their families, but also for many other people.
