Korea is indeed the leader in education because they do not treat their children like children but robots just so they can get a high paying job which require them to work like robots which does not require a long recharging period.
but after all the systematic systems and all, we have to spare ONE WHOLE BLOODY DAY or MORE on each semester for the time-wasting thing called “sugang” which is a day for registering your classes. while this does not matter to most university students in the WORLD, it is a bloody important day in Korea because that is where your parent (or yours) hard earned money is spent on.
why do I say that? because it’s technically war.
you pay the same amount of money regardless of how many grade points you take. so if you do not get your desired classes, you are just going to be throwing money down the drain. that’s one thing I don’t get because WE PAID for our education. so is it our fault that we couldn’t get the classes we desire because basically it’s like a hundred people fighting for 30 spots. and the chances of getting it is pretty low as you can see.
basically, you camp in front of your computer or many even go a step further where they wake up earlier to hit the cyber cafes for their fast internet. but for foreigners like myself who do not have the luxury to do so when I spend my holidays back home in Malaysia with internet a few hundred times slower than Korea, this war becomes even more difficult for me to battle. you need to open this window for a TIME website which tells you the time of your school’s server so you could hit the REGISTER button right as the clock strikes at 10am. the stupidest thing is that they RESERVE classes which have plenty of holes for year 1 students. HECK, they have loads of space there! I NEED THAT SPOT. they have never done that for my year. or because a foreigner’s first semester was controlled by the university where we have to take weird classes like Korean history and Korean culture where they teach your singing and dancing is a good strategy in war (it was. and it was pretty cool. which was why I scored but my classmates were all snoring away.)
so now in year two, I AM STILL HAVING PROBLEMS REGISTERING FOR YEAR ONE CLASSES. because the classes I want are always full. there are just NOT ENOUGH CLASSES! I bet if they open one more class it is going to be full as well. we get donations and we paid for school. what’s with the lack of classes? are you friggin kidding me? and last semester because I couldn’t load the page AT ALL in Malaysia I didn’t get many classes of my choice. only.. 2? out of luck. and I had to take a range of weird classes I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE. technically wasting my school fees. classes like French, Chinese (heck I speak Chinese. but it was nice learning how to write.) and Japanese was crazy to take in a year. imagine learning 3 languages at once. uh huh. and also, learning another language in ANOTHER language. it drove me crazy. I did enjoy those classes but they are classes I do not need. I just registered for them BECAUSE I had no other choice. EVERYTHING was full. the ones which are not are classes I can’t take (reserved for certain major or year) or classes I am not ready to take (example, learning how to run before you learn how to walk. you can’t take marketing mix before you take marketing management right?) or classes I’ve already taken OR ONLINE classes (the Koreans love this. because they are bloody amazing in memorizing and they like it that they don’t have to travel to uni for classes. but heck, I’m not attending an online university. I DESERVE to be able to go to the university like a normal university student.)
so I really hope Korean universities, or at least my own university, Sungkyunkwan university will improvise and not let their students go through so much hassle every semester. maybe a changing start from a not so competitive application (and grading system) would help Koreans stop their naturally built-in competitive mindset where they push themselves to the limit and lead such a stressful life.
… This is clearly written out of anger. hahahaha.. I bet it is relieving.. 😀
Oh, I never thought that this thing would be happening in other than my country, but it seems that it’s a problem starting to face many students around the world, even my freind in Europe is having the same issue except for those online classes! :s