>High schools in South Korea teach students for three years, from first grade (age 15–17) to third grade (age 17–19), and students commonly graduate at age 18 or 19. High school students are commonly expected to study increasingly long hours each year moving toward graduation, to become competitive and be able to enter attractive universities in Korea that almost all parents and teachers want students to enter. Many high school students wake and leave home in the morning at 5 am. When the school is over at 4 pm, they go to a studying room in the school or to a library to study instead of going home. This is called 'Yaja', which literally means 'evening self-study'. They don't need to go home to eat dinner since most schools provide paid dinner for students. After finishing yaja (usually ends at 10 pm, but later than 11 pm at some schools), they return home after studying, then return to specialty study schools (which are called Hagwon) often till 2 am, from Monday to Friday. In addition, they often study on weekends.
Wtf i hate south korea now
lol TL;DR
Korean students waste their time studying meaningless bullshit in order to get into the top universities(lmao nice meme)
does the average SK student really get 3 hours of sleep a night? did you go to a hagwon, and if you did what are they like? also how common is it for students to get into the best universities? sorry for the questions but this topic interests me
>3 hours
No, In case of myself I slept only 4 hours but it was because of insomnia and generally students here sleep 6~8 hours.
>Did you go to hagwon?
Yeah, After finishing school I went to hagwon and stayed there until 10pm (pic VERY related)
>How many students go to the top university?
About 5~10% of them. Half of "failed" students decide to retake college entrance exam so they study another year
Is the entrance exam very difficult? What happens to students that do not go to university, are they still stigmatised in Korean society? Do South Koreans usually do national service before or after university? Thanks for your answers
I’ve heard Korean girls get plastic surgery as their graduation gift.
>Is the entrance exam very difficult?
Yes and furthermore it implemented relative grading system so it doesn't matter it is whether hard or not, Because 90% of students will always fail kek
>What happens if students don't go to university?
You will work at factory or some blue-collar job forever while barely receiving minimum wage. Of course you will NEVER buy home nor car, marry and have a family
>Do South Koreans serve in military before or after university?
During university IIRC
Why are korean presidents so corrupt?
1st President - impeached because of rigged election, defected to Hawaii
2nd President - resigns due to coup, sentenced 3 years imprisonment in court-martial
3rd President - wife shot by guy trying to kill him, soon after killed by close adviser
4th President - couldn't control demonstrations, resigns due to Gwangju Massacre after just 8 months in office
5th President - sentenced to death for his role in the Gwangju Massacre, later pardoned
6th President - arrested for bribery after term, imprisoned 17 years for munity and treason during Gwangju Massacre, later pardoned
7th President - economic crisis forcing IMF to step in during term, second son arrested for bribery of intercession and tax evasion
8th President - 5 family members including his 3 sons guilty of bribery
9th President - "slips and dies" while climbing a mountain during investigations for bribery
10th President - brother arrested, wife's cousin arrested, accused of violating real estate laws
11th President - daughter of 3rd president, puppet of a cult leader, impeached
12th President -Has been a part of numerous scandals and has fucked up the economy due to his leftist policies
>>What happens if students don't go to university?
>You will work at factory or some blue-collar job forever while barely receiving minimum wage. Of course you will NEVER buy home nor car, marry and have a family
What happens if you get like in the 30th percentile?
Do South Koreans think national service is a good idea? Do they enjoy it?
1. Go to relatively shitty university (still able to get a job if they major STEM)
2. Retake the exam
Wtf, I thought Turks were roaches, but this shit's insane
korea is a shithole
Nah, nah
Only reason national service is still a thing is because boomers seriously think North Korea has a secret master plan to annex South Korea
>blue-collar job
>getting minimun wage
100% sure this retard got brainwashed by high school teachers and never had a job
>1. Go to relatively shitty university (still able to get a job if they major STEM)
What's so bad about this?
I would rather use the 3 years to do something useful and then go to a "shitty" university
Indeed
And rich kids just study abroad with daddy's money, so they don't have to go through all this bullshit
Well whats it like for you user?
>And rich kids just study abroad with daddy's money, so they don't have to go through all this bullshit
Smart people like me () also don't have to go through this bullshit
Do you guys have volunteer divisions or are they all mixed with conscripts? I heard some join the special forces by choice or go to military academy but i'm not sure about the main army. Im another user.
They don't live well anyway tho
That's why many students here choose to go to those universities
Of course they don’t. There’s a joke here that the best option in military service is not going there at all. We should keep national service because we need to educate retards who are native enough to think like but there are so many absurdities that need to be fixed.
*naive
Special force, Navy, Air force, Marine, Mandatory police, Mandatory firefighters -> Voluntary
Army - Almost 90% of them are involuntarily conscripted and the other 10% voluntarily serve in certain specialty
>be Korean
>realize early on that even graduates from top universities are learning how to be wageslaves
>don't care about entrance exam
>go to average university
>graduate
>open a business
>employ top university graduates
My dad runs a business online for 3 decades and he used to tell me that 90% of business go bankrupt in their first 10 years and half of the other 10% follow their step in another 10 years. Running a business is really a tough business m8
it's actually pretty nice to visit
tons of people here speak fluent english, which is a nice change from j*pan
t. been here a few days
Lots of our business owners face red ocean in their fields like the story koreanon above said.
Wasn't this bullshit the plot for a recent Kdrama (Sky Castle?). My wife was way into that. Looks like there's starting to be some backlash.
Well, this "korean students study very long hours" stereotype is only true in rich parts of Seoul(places like Gangnam) their parents push their kids to study very hard, but it's not that harsh in other parts of Korea.
For example I live in a city called Suwon it's just a middle class city in Capital area with about 100mil pop.
Me and other students attended school until 5pm then got home and we used play league all night every night
Kids were fucking dumb and many of them didn't even go to college as well as me
I think this is the same for most of the kids
Now i'm 25 and work at blue collar job. Me and my co workers get paid $2000~4000/m (varies by how long they worked at the company)
No one works for minimum wage here. that's why we import foreign workers. He's over exaggerating
But you still know that's not true at all, beside those grannys who clean buildings, young high school graduates get paid pretty well even if they work at a blue collar job. stop pushing dumb stereotypes.
>Me and my co workers get paid $2000~4000/m (varies by how long they worked at the company)
I know a Korean girl who receives 4000 USD as her starting salary after university
>import foreign workers
das rite
please fuck up Korea a little
I am a born and raised Gangnam dweller and even here 1/3 of the class don’t give a damn about their grades, 1/3 study hard sometimes but not consistently and the last 1/3 go through the draconian level of studying. Of course things all get different when they enter the 12th grade.
the sad th8ng is that it's the other way around. Koreans keep stealing our women
it's funny because are ranked most democratic nation in Asia, ironic how that works
>Now i'm 25 and work at blue collar job
How could you graduate that fast?
What did she do?
Reading this makes me wish I had tried harder. I have never really tried a single time in my life.
>What did she do?
she studied something related to math and works as data scientist in a big city which isn't Seoul
wtf all east asians and south east asians belong to me
fuck off koreans!
Then she must've graduated top university and work at a special field. $4000 starting salary is not the case even for most university graduates. Average starting salaries here are around $2200 for both high school and university graduates.
The gap gets way bigger as they get old though.
Read the post again. I didn't go to college. Hell, I didn't study at all for my entire life and i'm living just fine.
I work 9to6 and earn about $3000/m and I have a decent car and an small apartment for myself. I eat whatever I want and do whatever I want to do.
Maybe you've heard scary and mieserable life stories of students who didn't go to university from high shcool teachers. But really it's just their propaganda to motivate you to study.
I legit feel bad for Koreans that have to grow up like this. I did well in school, but I would never have subjected myself to such torture. Reading these horror stories (and having my wife confirm them), seeing that a "good" outcome for these guys is USD$4k/month (less than a fifth of what I was making when I was an expat in my twenties and thirties) makes me feel so fucking lucky.
I sincerely hope this shit system is reformed some day.
One thing you are missing is that we don't have crazy rent/healthcare prices unlike the USA. 4k/m you can pretty much live like a king
>yes of course I make 20k USD per month
Theres also no democracy in the west except switzerland.
If we go disposable income then average citizens in most European countries aren’t really better than average Koreans.
How did you pull over like $350k in your 20~30s? That's some absurd number even for Americans that is hard to believe
I was referring to the American who claimed this absurd number. see
Yes but I was living in Asia (specifically Japan - regularly visiting Korea, especially during the periods in which I had a girlfriend there) then, too. I know Japan was/is more costly than Korea but not THAT much more so. Like I said, I was being paid 5-6x what Koreabros were being paid, and didn't need to completely take a shit on my teenage years. It's a fucked system, and I hope you guys get a chance to change it.
Health insurance is only like a few hundred per month.
Lawyer on US BIGLAW salary scale with sick ass COLA/rent inclusion.
>If we go disposable income then average citizens in most European countries aren’t really better than average Koreans.
I work the exact same poistion than this korean girl. Wee compared our work environment, tasks and cost of living. We also graduated at the same time. As it turns out, I save about 3-5 times as much money as she does. I'm also at work atm and guess what I've been doing since I arrived in the morning
Stop ruining east asian social norms, go study and work yourself to death right now.
Also stop working only 9 hours, you're not fit to call yourself a real person! Work harder! Work 16 shifts!
>wtf i hate south korea now
Why do Korean parents send their kids to hagwons when they can take the same classes with better instructors online at much lower prices? This never made sense to me
Good to hear something other than the common Korea is hell stories
We have a similar system in Turkey but this seems way more extreme. I went through a tough time studying in here, I would've gone crazy if i had to go through this.
because this is how democratic actually works, zhang
Because the latter giving you more independence it also requires more self discipline and not all students can manage that.
>buy online lectures
>do nothing and play vidya like before
>go to hagwon
>can't do anything beside studying because lecturer is watching you
going to school for 14 hours (we can assume 8AM-10PM) monday to friday is still hell as far as I'm concerned
>imblying they don’t waste their time looking at smartphones anyway
Parents would have much better control over their kids at home tbqh
Has anyone received 0.0 GPA in the first semester of uni? I did, and it almost got me disenrolled.
>not having the computer in the living room
Yikes
see
Not really
>t. Just know it
Than explain why many Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Saving rate here is much more higher than Americans
And mean by 4-5 times more you are getting 150k/year. That's certainly not the case for most Americans.
But some children have both parents working
If you go to a top university in SK do employers still care about your GPA or is getting into the university good enough to get you a job?
Because most Americans are profoundly lazy and unintelligent. So what? My point is that you can succeed in America without ponying up your soul and the best years of your youth. There is no reason at all to subject kids to such a level of assfuckery, akin to child labor in Victorian fucking England, just to be /average/.
Immaterial to my point, but your math's incorrect.
South Korea educational culture is basically Japan on Steroids. My teacher used to tell me "At least you are not Korean" when I was preparing for an university exam in my final year at highschool.
But they come back home at six. And the kid stays until when, ten?
Except it sucks becaus its in Turkey oops
sounds right, too many variables that you cant control
My sister is going to hungary to get a doctor degree. She is likely gonna fail isnt she?
>She fell for the literal meme
Very likely unless she's really good at English
sounds like 90s style cubicle wageslaving
why are korean girls feminist???
Because they actually care about themselves
You retard.