Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Whistleblower]

Korean overseas students studying at foreign universities are returning because "it's harder for them to graduate from them". They find foreign universities more difficult to graduate with a good mark whilst transfering to a "good" Korean University "is easier to graduate here". Find the article below:

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/02/117_18569.html

[Yaya]

If you do want to try grad school in Korea, get a scholarship covering most or all of tuition. Grad schools here are trying to look "international" by practically bribing foreigners to attend. It ain't worth it otherwise.

[Benicio]

To answer your question, no!
Except for the top level universities here- SNU, Yonsei, Korea and a few other specialty schools- even Koreans think a degree from here isn't worth much. It certainly isn't respected in other countries.
The only reason you should ever study at a Korean university is if you are going to study Korean language or arts and maybe history. Other than that, you're wasting time & money.

Most western schools are easy to get into, but hard to graduate.
All Korean schools are very, very difficult to get into, but once you are there, it's pretty much a guarantee that you will graduate.
This has been common knowledge for a long time.
Degrees from most overseas unis are far more respected here because they know you have to work so much harder to get them. Also, you have to know English.
Korean schools, once you pass the notoriously difficult entrance exam, are more about making connections with seniors and professors in order to secure a place in the job market. This is why they have so much emphasis on activities that have nothing to do with studying or intellectual growth- drinking & having sports days/festivals with seniors and professors.

[reactionary]

i disagree with the claim that it is easy to get into american schools but hard to get into korean ones. america has a lot of very very elite schools with strict admissions. of course, there is a public school for everyone.

but i think it's the same in korea. aren't there plenty of unis down in daejon even bribing koreans to try to get them to attend? but most koreans won't look outside of seoul (or maybe busan) for university.

so - they go to an american school. even if it's not top tier, they can at least say they were "US educated"

[Benicio]

[Benicio]

Well Reactionary, it's because of the education culture.
Yes, top tier unis in the West have very difficult admission standards, but most people don't plan on or want to go to them.
Most people plan on going to state uni or whatever.
There's not so much competition there, so it's easy to get in.
For the few top ones- Harvard, Yale, Stanford- there is big competition because the small group who want to get in are also competing with all these Asian kids who are dying to go there too.
Now, in Korea, everybody wants to go to the top level unis. That's why the competition is so hard. These lower level unis are there as fallbacks for the students who don't rise to the top. The backwoods, small unis who are begging for students are pretty much the bottom of the barrel.

[Atavistic]

I think you're ignoring the language factor here. I read an article a while back about non-native English speakers in nursing programs in the States. it said that they had a much higher drop out level than native-speaking students. One of the prime factors seemed to be the language.

Someone may appear fluent, someone may pass TOEIC or TOEFL or whatever, but the specialized vocabulary needed in many graduate programs as well as a large amount of daily reading and having to write a thesis or doctorate in English? It's a long, long time before you'd feel as fast reading in a second language as in a first.

Combine that with social factors, cost, etc.

But I don't know...have they compared Korean drop out rates to Chinese or Japanese?

[Chris Kwon]

[Benicio]

We have to work much harder than Korean undergraduates.
That's for sure!
The majority of undergrads here do a whole lot of pretending to be busy studying. Most of the time, they are just goofing off.
Also, practically none of them work part time jobs during the semester unlike most of us did.
Koreans view the undergrad years as a time to kick back and goof off.
It's especially true for the 1st & 2nd year students. They seem so surprised when we foreign teachers actually expect them to do work.

In the West, the first 2 years of uni serve as a kind of weeding out process where the ones who can't hack it drop out. It's much harder than here!

[Ukon]

[Chris Kwon]

[Benicio]

Korea and the West(let's say North America for example) are in a reverse situation.
We think of high school as a goof around party time and it's pretty darn easy. University is the time to shape up or ship out. Yes, there is partying, but I think it's a lot less than TV & movies portray it to be.
The ones who spend all their time partying don't make it to graduation and the dropout rate is high.
In Korea, high school is a true hell of studying and exhaustion. I certainly wouldn't want to live through it!
They study a heck of a lot of math and science, but no critical thinking.
When it comes to university, where they should be learning extensively about their majors to be prepared for their future jobs, they totally slack off & act as if learning in university is not all that important.
Virtually no one is ever kicked out of uni here and the dropout rate is very low.

[Ukon]

[Yaya]

Another point worth considering. If you study for an MBA, you're also paying for connections and networking, two important things in Korea. If you plan on staying in Korea, I think you'll do well, but if not, oh well.

I once worked at a state-run bank in Korea. I met guys who did their U.S. MBAs with one even finishing law school at Cornell Univ. But the consensus was that their overseas degrees did NOT speed up or advance their promotion prospects within the bank. Many Koreans who get degrees abroad, even from Ivy League schools, are largely disappointed that their degrees didn't help them as much as they had hoped.

Many times, existing managers who do NOT have overseas degrees do everything they can to sabotage those who do from climbing the ladder. Talk about resentment and jealousy messing up the workplace.

[Hollywoodaction]

I really don't get that article. Are they suggesting that people should not study abroad because Korean universities are easier?