Korean Job Discussion Forums

Gollum · Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Location: Japan

My father told me this story about when he was in college:

Way back in the mid 60's, he had a Chinese professor teaching one of his core Engineering classes. My father overslept and missed his class (and a very important test).

My father went to the teacher to beg, "Please let me take the test... please." The Chinese guy insisted, "No, no! You miss class, you no take test!"

No amount of pleading helped, so my father began to walk out of the office. Then, as a last resort, my father turned at the doorway and looked the Chinese guy in the eye with a naughty smile, "The truth is that I just got married last week, and as I was getting ready to leave for class, I turned and saw my wife laying in bed.... and well.... I just couldn't make it to class in time to take the test. I'm sorry."

The Chinese professor paused, looked at him and said, "Me understand... you take test!"

The Lemon · Joined: 11 Jan 2003

prosodic · Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Location: ��

weatherman · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: Korea

I have been lucky this semester. Not one student begging, though I did have a request from the powers above to pass a student who never came to class once. Being from the powers above I passed him. Usually I have a couple come begging each semester, and usually I am a softy and change their grades, but this semester I was maybe a bit too generous with grading and preempted all the begging. Smile

kiwiboy_nz_99 · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: ...Enlightenment...

Luckily my school uses the bell curve, so I'm off the hook ...

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Kwangjuchicken · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 4:09 am Post subject:

kiwiboy_nz_99 · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: ...Enlightenment...

Oh dear. I had this poor sweet girl in one class. She must have known she was not the sharpest tack in the box but man she was sweet. And every day after class she'd instead on carrying my cassete player to wherever I was going next, like clockwork. Now I look through my records and indeed she scored the lowest in the class. I wonder if she knew this would happen and was buttering me up all term. I feel conflicted.

Kwangjuchicken · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:29 pm Post subject:

The other night when I saw this thread I was going to post about an Email I got from a friend in the USA. But then, I responded to The Lemon's post about not all schools having Begging Week.

Ok, now the post about my friend. It turns out that Korea's reputation is catching up with them. My friend is in the last stages of her PhD in Biology from a top school. She is on the committee to help select new students for the MA program. She said that the department is harder on Korean applications because their grades do not mean a lot because of all the cheating that goes on in Korea during exams and because of big grade inflation problems. She even wanted to know if it was true that after the grades are posted, studenst can pressure their teachers to raise their grades. So, I told her, yes, and explained begging week.

Now I have a question. Has anyone ever heard of this happening in any country except Korea? At my last college we offered 9 foreign languages and there were teachers from over 12 different countries. None of them had ever heard of such a thing until they came to Korea.

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Kwangjuchicken · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject:

I just had a thought about why it would be hard for Korea to keep this a secret. With about 90% of the world's ESL jobs here, there are many of us to experience this. Also, native teachers here represent many different majors. Then, many of them go back home and go to graduate school. They tell about their experiences here, et voila, the cat is out of the bag. Laughing

madtinkerer · Joined: 02 Jul 2004 Location: Gumi, South Korea

My first post, and it has nothing to do with Korea. Good way to start Sad

Anyway, I taught classes while I was doing my MA at a good Canadian University, and begging for grades is not something confined to Korea. At the end of each semester, I was approached by 20%+ of my students about their marks. Their efforts ranged from simply requesting explanantions of their grades, to crying, legal threats, bribery and hints of sexual favors. It was really sickening. Many Canadian students seem to feel entitled to an A, and become very indignant when they don't receive one. Cheating was rampant too. I caught 2-3 people cheating on every test, and a friend of mine caught more than half of his 2nd year history class plagiarizing their on their essays. Such things were a major reason why I'm not pursuing a PhD and academic career - I couldn't handle a lifetime of that.

gmat · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

The worthiness of university grades is certainly NOT isolated to Korea.

I read recently, that due to massive grade inflation at US universities, some Wall Street employers like Goldman Sachs are starting to ask for SAT scores as the only way to judge a candidate's potential. University grades are suspect.

From education expert joannejacobs.com:

SATs to get into a job
Some employers are asking college graduates for their SAT scores, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

"Ironically, just at a moment when more colleges are questioning the value of standardized testing in the admissions process, some companies are taking a second look at the old scores.

. . . Since Goldman Sachs takes students from any academic background, (campus recruiting director Aaron) Marcus says math scores of 700 (out of 800) or higher indicate "whether they're comfortable with numbers." Applicants initially self-report test scores and submit a resume that highlights leadership and work experience. An official college transcript is not reviewed until the company decides to make an offer."

Employers must be wary of grade inflation.

edit: formatting prob with the word"resume"

sharhim · Joined: 13 Feb 2004

The Korea Herald also just ran an article that said a man working on his Ph.D. in the U.K. was so shocked to see a student that had studied for 7 years have his degree rejected. He said in his years of experience he has NEVER known of a single case in Korea where a Ph.D. degree has been denied. He was urging Korean universities to adhere to a moral / ethical code.

I've been recently very frustrated as well, as the English assistant in my university tries to get me to give atleast a D to students who never attended class and never contacted me one time! I will quit before I do that. That is so insulting, to think that the work of 1 diligent student, and the instructor, is equal to that of just paying the tuition fee for another student.

I'm sure it's true to some extent in other countries, as well, but Korea has had a reputation of corruption and bribery that I think is near the top of the list, for a long time.

Atleast I hope I never mortgage my own integrity for that kind of educational robbery.