Korean Job Discussion Forums

[3DR]

[Steelrails]

The university system the world over seems to be small belts of goodness surrounded by a thick layer of empty filler. Undergrad classes that serve as little more than review. An admissions process either corrupted by some draconian testing system, money, or some lame attempt at societal engineering that does little more than water down the quality of a university education. These days you have a multitude of people who have limited intellectual curiosity, possessing little in the way of knowledge, and little interest in the whole experience beyond it serving as a way to get paid and it basically being a 4 year-long party camp. This seems to be the case back home and in Korea. Before people who didn't want to do such things, but still make decent money went to work at the Ford factory. Now? A clerk at Best Buy.

And one more thing about standardized tests- They may not serve as a great indicator, but they can tell two things: Who is utterly unqualified and who is supremely qualified. Students who score between a 1520-1600 are almost always extraordinarily bright and have the ability to function well in an academic setting. And if you can't get at least an 1100, you probably don't belong in college, no matter how good your grades are. At some point you have to retain your knowledge.

[wooden nickels]

[goreality]

[atwood]

[atwood]

[John Stamos jr.]

The SAT is probably the best way to weed people out in the US. Almost all of my immediate friends scored over 1300 and I think it generally correlates to intelligence among American individuals. I'm in favor of standardized tests as a gauge, as long as they're administered correctly. They can also be a good intellectual challenge. Explains so much about Canadians, though, how they seep through.

Of course, korean people are usually weird and extreme so their borg society makes non conformity on many levels an unsatisfactory life choice. The old people are broke and cumbersome, the young people are infused with mental/social constrictions and seem existentially lost, and you have a bunch of middle class dudes spending worthless hours in the office all day, just to financially support way more people than they should have to. They're miserable, it's a retardated society and they're a very odd group of people who mostly just tolerate it as much as they can before it's off to line 1. There's too much pressure on everyone and they have trouble opening up those kinds of conversations for public debate, so they remain miserable and power off.

[jazzmaster]

[OneWayTraffic]

[radcon]

[young_clinton]

It's the make it or be broken culture that is in South Korea. It wouldn't be all to bad for that to be applied partially to The United States, 'somehow make it in school or find out that there isn't all that many places to go to or fit in'.

[anamika]

[PatrickGHBusan]

This issue is hardly new and it is a social problem that has plagued Korea for a long time (Japan as well).

Suicide is a pretty serious issue in Korea and the causes are often hard to pin down to a few clear ones. Could Korea do more to prevent suicide? Yes they could.

Some measures have been taken but those are largely material measures to prevent suicide like sealing off the subway platforms from the rails. That treats the end result by preventing people from killing themselves but it does not attack the root causes of what drives a person to suicide. Those of course are much harder to deal with and to counter.


Also, suicide is a touchy issue because where is the line between letting people decide what they do with their own life and their own death and government intervention in such a decision?


The pressure to succeed in Korea is tremendous and starts at such a young age (basically elementary school and middle school) that it will drive people to kill themselves when faced with failure.
Not an easy issue to tackle.

[optik404]

But they redesigned mapo bridge with pictures of steaks and happy looking people. I did hear that suicides on that bridge have dropped significantly since the redesign.

[Steelrails]

Actually research indicates that a lot of suicides are spontaneous attempts, usually acted upon within minutes of the urge. Material measures can sometimes help with those.