Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Many people are well-educated. But you can meet people with fancy degrees who are still ignorant, racist or clueless. How about the nurse or doctor who wouldn't accept a foreigner's blood since it is obviously incompatible to Korean blood? I think it is hard to spend all one's life in a country such as Korea and not be somewhat ignorant, somewhat clueless about the world no matter if you get a high-level degree and job and perhaps learn a foreign language. I'm sure this applies all over the world. So what does that education mean other than the means to a job? Maybe not much. To meet people who are apparently well-educated with no clue about things that seem so obvious is kind of sad. Well just a thought. Suppose we're all ignorant to some extent.

[Arthur Fonzerelli]

[Dalton]

Off the top of my head: Education makes you aware of knowledge, history and the universe in a structured way. The process of gaining it surely makes you more aware than you were before of your own capability.

[masuro]

As my father used to say about teachers, "The more education they got, the stunner they are." It's true, in a way (and not just of teachers^^). Some people have no common sense or experience in the world and getting a university degree or reading any number of books is not going to help that. The situation is also unique (?) here in Korea. Older teachers who could not leave Korea during the military dictatorships knew nothing of the outside world. When my wife was young her teachers taught her things like "Korean peppers are the hottest in the world" and "Other peoples have no jeong and they don't care about their families." After my wife visited Canada for the first time she was surprised by how many false things her teachers had told her. I think many of these false conceptions will disappear as more Koreans visit other countries and if MBC et. al. ever stop showing foreigners gasping for breath as they eat peppers and dakgalbi.

[canuckistan]

I've always liked this quote:

The purpose of an education is not to tell someone what to think, it is to turn a closed mind into an open one.

[itaewonguy]

welcome to korea

[The Man known as The Man]

[weatherman]

I find a lot of well educated people in Korea very knowledgeable about the greater outside world. Quite cultured, indeed. But these well educated types seem to look at this education as a possession, as social capital, and only secondary for any enlightenment that it may bring to them.

[Ya-ta Boy]

High school and college are the background to education. The real stuff doesn't happen till after you graduate.