Korean universities need to change. I’m not paying 3~4k USD every semester to just listen to people explaining how to print out “hello world” on a computer screen or engage in a debate on whether AI is going to destroy us or not. Basic chemistry and physics should be a prerequisite – not as courses for the first two years – it’s a waste of their students’ time and talent. When universities become mere extension of k-12, it sucks.

A better and more effective distinction of people is their ability to think, their intellect. Such filtering can not be achieved with education system. Education system should exist with the purpose of answering to the demand of our society for better access to knowledge. When the system attempts to work as a filtering machine, though success do exist, its limitations weigh on everybody’s shoulder. We need a more solid belief in the society and the market in their ability to reward those who bring true innovations – innovations that our society naturally responses to.

Exploration of academic knowledge loses its excitement when principle understanding is replaced by exercise questions for GPA battles. We are trapped – by the outdated standards for academic achievements. We are so frightened of uncertainty and obsessed with the idea of stability that all the novelty of learning is ignored. We all sit in the same classroom, waiting for the next task to be assigned, mentally masturbating ourselves with the idea that GPA and extracurriculars that we are pursuing are the ultimate goals of our lives.

Decentralization of academic institutions and ridding the “ranking for schools” are crucial for a better environment building for our future generations. So called “college level learning” is not college-level, at all. We not only need to stop the gate keeping of higher education, but also work on providing better access for the general public. A small portion of the government’s education expense can easily change the reality. The hard part, is for us who have already gotten the privilege of high level education to drop our damn egos.