Reality of Korea... and Where would I end up..?

At Samsung electronics R&D Campus in Seoul, currently 5,000 employees are working at the place in which around 7,000 workers can be accommodated. According to a person concerned, "It can be explained by the fact that many R&D labors moved to several places, but in essential departments many of them had to leave their place." Samsung earned approximately $200 billion in total sales this year and its operating profits are $20 billion. However, mass dismissal is taking place right now. Then it would not be difficult to imagine what is going on at other companies. 

A lot of people who experienced the period of IMF financial aid claim that compared to that time of 1997, making a living is much more difficult. At one of 5 major Korea's companies, an executive who just got promoted last year was informed that he needs to leave. At Doosan group, even people under twenty are recommended to leave their place, and it means they are indirectly fired. 

This kind of situation is least likely to bounce back sooner or later. As time goes on, it will get worse. That's why I no longer feel envious of acquaintances or friends who get accepted to high-paying companies. 9 out of 10 are going to leave the company in 10 years. If they have family members to provide for, it is going to be excruciating. 

What should I do in this situation for the present and for the future? I am going to study further to get more specialist knowledges on my field, Material Engineering, and I would like to study for Green Energy Technology, such as Battery and Adsorbents. Are these things going to be conducive to my life until I die at around 100? I am not really sure. I might need more things under my belt to be competitive among other counterparts. What matters in the future is the ability of creating something new instead of just using accumulated knowledge. To do that, I should keep struggling to hone my critical thinking skills. And promising fields for future are Bio-Technolgy and Aero-Technology, but not sure what to do to become a competent person for those fields. Let's keep studying and thinking, and then I might be able to find a solution. 

Pseudo-Science: This is what I have been doing

There is a quote that struck my mind while reading a book called "The Demon-Haunted World". It is from a book "The New Organon(1620)" by Francis Bacon.

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called "sciences as one would." For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding."

And This is Richard Feynman's technique to identify pseudo-science, which is about recognizing the  difference between knowing the name for something and truly understanding it. 

'Without using the new word which you have just learned, try to rephrase what you have just learned in your own language. Without using the word "energy," tell me what you know now about the dog's motion.'

I need to confess that I have been more of a pseudo-engineering student. This is not a sudden feeling that emerged while reading the book and an article. I have vaguely had an opinion on myself that there is rarely anything I can explain in plain Korean/English. I just did not want to acknowledge the fact that I know nothing. There are many scientific concepts I have learned through lectures and studies so far, but I feel like I need to go over everything from scratch. Okay. Let's get started.

Concern about what I am going to face in America

I almost finished applying for a few graduate schools in the US and until next August I barely have specific things do to, so if I spend the rest of time effectively by doing something meaningful, my life there could differ a lot. 

I am seriously concerned with my English proficiency since I am clearly aware that what is going to happen to me while studying in the US. Many native English-speaking friends tell me that my English level is pretty high for not staying abroad and not getting any private tutoring. But it does not sound good to me because it definitely delivers an important message that they feel some awkwardness from my English. When someone cannot feel any accent or difference in constructing sentences compared to ours, we would not praise for their language skills. 

I am specialized in engineering, so that I would not spend as much time in debating with peers as business, economics, psychology majors that strictly require a native-level target language skills even to non-native speakers. But the lack of English proficiency would definitely get in the way of learning things as fast as other natives. Plus I am thinking of settling down in the US after completion of graduate studies, and probably moving country to country where English is exclusively spoken. What's most important is that I don't want to become like other Korean Professors who have studied in the US for almost a decade but still have basic levels of colloquial skills. I am not imagining my English level to reach  native-like fluency in less than one or two years, but I could reach that level sooner than I expect, 5 years, it would be icing on the cake.

Until August, when I start a new semester if I get accepted(I am pretty sure they would pick me), I have around 7 months left. I watched a documentary about during the Second World War young american soldiers over 20 getting extensive training on their French, German 20 hours a day for 6 months before being sent to Germany and France. It turned out that they became fluent in the target languages. I would not be able to study that long hours a day, but it hinted at the possibility of boosting up my English skills as long as I am determined. 

My problem is that I have skipped solidifying my intermediate English level by studying high-intermediate/advanced levels for ESL learners, which means that because of my boasted ego I chose native-like levels of input immediately from a far less level. This is why my learning pace has been extremely slow and I have not made much improvement on my English. I was lying to myself. From now on, I should read/watch/listen to materials with comprehensible levels, understanding at least 80% of input, and from time to time challenge myself with a bit higher levels. Bring it on.

After Watching a couple of videos about "Elon Musk"

  I think I first heard the presence of him from an anecdote about where Robert Downey Jr., got some idea for his role as "Tony Stark". Since then, I haven't really tired to figure things about regarding him. About two months ago, however, I ran into an article from The New Yorker regarding how people working for him, or used to work for him, have a completely different opinion on him, compared to most other people and mass media. I was a bit shocked after encountering all the unexpected stories about him. There was a girl who had been working for him for many years from the beginning of business as a secretary. As she became pregnant and wanted to have a maternity leave, she asked for it, and he replied "yes" with a smile. But later she got a message, saying sort of like "You don't need to come. Take a rest forever from work." Some other stories referred in the article delivered the description of his cynical side hidden beyond his public image.

  After watching two videos about his talk at TED, at commencement, and at her office, I think I might have a completely biased opinion on him. According to several interviewees in the article, he was a super workaholic and if an employee could not meet the standards he set up at work, regardless of how many contributions the employee has made, he would fire him in anyway. Well, let me briefly talk about being workaholic, or in a better term, being hard-working. It kind of makes sense to be honest. He has built his own business, and it is obviously booming with applauds. Who would not work super hard if tons of money from his pocket was invested in his own business? I would even stay way longer at my office than at my house, sleep only a couple hours, and focus significantly on my stuff to do during waking-hours. And I would be cynical to incompetent hired employees. 

  Anyway, This is not what I want to talk about. For some natural scientists who are also thinking of beginning their own business, Elon Musk must be a hero. He specialized in Physics at undergraduate school, which is totally the opposite of making money, and kept pursing the same major until he finally gave up his Ph.D. course after 2 years. And he successfully started and expanded his business on a huge scale, beginning from PayPals, then expanding to other unrelated fields, SpaceX, SolarCity, and Tesla. Now we might be wondering what in the world would encourage him to do all sorts of things? At the TED talk, he answered to that "I don't really know." But later he added to what the interviewer instead answered to, "Works super hard, not only that, self-analyze.", "Reason from First-Principles, approach then go step-by-step upfront from them.", "Appreciate negative but sincere feedbacks that your friends give to you" "Risk Now before getting hampered by the obligation most would see."

  Such beautiful pieces of Advice! Some narrow-minded people would definitely criticize his idea, saying "Oh, he was just lucky.", "He was an innate genius", instead of looking into its cores with an open mind. At present,  He is obviously at the forefront of the development of advanced technology. In addition to this, He has become a inspiring motivator to business-planning people, and even to distinguished entrepreneurs. I also should try absorbing and applying his mindset to become a competent worker at this fiercely competitive world.

Why do some foreign teachers have difficulty living in Korea?

After talking with my friend who is soon leaving back to America, I felt like crystalizing my thoughts by writing down here. This is kind of hilarious and bitter, but this has been true to most foreigners I have met for the past few years. 

Even at this late night, some foreigners might be having a sleepless night, lying down in their bed and trying to figure things out. These would be either trivial things that would fade away the next morning or fundamental things, such as the reason for teaching English in Korea,  unfair treatment by their boss or Koreans in general. 

These things are pretty much happening to many foreign teachers, and logically a lot of Koreans would think about those things too. But there is a thing that seem to show a huge difference between two groups of foreign teachers, ordinary ones and desperate but lonely outsiders. 

The first group, ordinary foreign teachers, is a typical one we can easily think of when hearing about what their life would be like, and I am not being presumptuous. Based on many conversations with them, they just live like other normal Koreans of their age. Work, Hangout, Relax, Hobbies. 

Whereas, The other group, desperate but lonely outsiders, is a bit tricky. On the surface, their life seems pretty much the same like other foreign teachers, but many of them are actually being ruled out from both expatriate community and Korean community. They don't belong to any of the groups, sadly. And some features appear to what's common to the type of people, such as spending much time on social networking, trying to look happy by faking their emotions and situations on the cyberworld.

Then why is this kind of difference happening?

I am not really sure honestly, but based on all the information accumulated through careful observation, I can list typical characteristics of both groups.

For the first group, let's say a social group, the first thing I've noticed is that they have almost no difficulty getting used to the new environment. As far as I'm concerned, the language barrier or the lack of Korean skills does not matter. I've seen many foreigners who had no problem getting along with Koreans, regardless of their English level. most of them are positive and energetic. At work, they were competent and their colleagues liked them. In addition, they loved or, at least, didn't hate Kids. So at work, both Korean/Foreign teachers have a good opinion on them, and they are also likely to get along with people outside. 

For the second group, on the other hand, the first thing I've noticed is that they usually have difficulty getting used to the new environment. They are pretty negative and pessimistic about their life in general. They hate teaching kids and usually ended up failing at handling them. (Kids are not idiots. they can feel it) What's worse is they think they are working well enough to be fairly treated by their peers or boss, which isn't true at all. They keep complaining about the situations they are stuck at(but many co-teachers ended up not caring or snapping at them, saying that before complaining you should do your job at work.) Who wouldn't hate foreign teachers who keep complaining about kids, working environment, under the circumstances that they don't do well on their job? Nobody wouldn't be willing to sympathize with them. It's awful! 

So,,, they keep moving over and over, not working at the same place for more than a year, no matter how good the working conditions are.  Lastly, I would be a bit careful to say this, some of them are a big fan of K-pop. It is undeniable. But the majority of expats don't really like K-pop and hate talking about that. And what's funny is most Koreans also don't want to talk about K-pop, including me. It will be okay if they know K-pop in depth and mention some 80s~2000s all-time popular singers. But they are just interested in noxious K-pop 20s or 30s are not interested, if not unconcerned, anymore. That's why they become an outsider from both communities. If this is okay, then it's fine. None of my business, but if you want to make some friends, it's better not to show the zeal for K-pop (Well, I've seen that they, who like K-pop, often gather up to go to a K-pop concert. But this is out of my point.)

As I mentioned earlier, the whole description might not be true, and rather be biased. But if you're familiar with statistics, I've talked and met with more than 100 foreign teachers, and at least with a third of them we had a conversation about that in depth. the data distribution is arbitrary across Korea. So, from the point of an engineering student, it is okay, it is credible.

My Writing skills: present and future

In our current society, more and more people are sticking around a sedentary lifestyle; and thus, they are more likely to communicate with one another in the internet: Facebook, Instagram, and even blog posts. Then what elements are important to judge someone on this kind of communication? We can easily rule out conventional things that used to have sweeping effects on building a relation, such as physical appearance, voice, tone, gesture, and even subtle smell. Only one element comes to  distinguish from those elements, our words. Our word are all we have. People judge us based on the style of writing, word choice, and structural cohesiveness. 

What Korea has dismissed and is heretofore seemingly oblivious to is the importance of official writing education. It is such a shame, but I - of course, most people around my age - am barely aware of how to write a compelling, clear essay. Because we simply haven't had any chance to sharpen our writing skills. It means that we can't critique and edit our own and others' writing, reliably explain how our writing is structured and how words in a sentence interact. So, when I happen to read long comments on a certain article or blog posts, I sometimes furrow my brows in concentration and need to put extra efforts to grasp their intents.

Our words are the projection of ourselves in the physical absence. For example, if applicants use poor grammar and can't properly write their resume - extenuating circumstances would be applied to English language learners -   job recruiters will conclude that these are not qualified for a position. It would be frustrating if we have heard from a company we applied for that we were excluded due to some grammatical errors on our resume. 

This is why I decided to hone my writing skills - especially academic writing - gaining the benefit of free online courseware distributed by kind, knowledgeable instructors. As far as I am concerned, the US, where I am planning to pursue my career further and eventually settle down for a bit, puts much emphasis on the education of writing, so that American undergraduates are required to do several folds of writing assignments compared to Korean students. I can assume that, not to speak of my colloquial language, I would awfully have difficulty keeping a pace with well-trained counterparts in terms of written language. 

At present, I definitely lack writing skills; however, I won't let my weakness hold me back from achieving my goal set up for later in the US life.

The Joy of thinking

Every now and then, the expression pops up into my mind and lingers there for a quite amount of time. But soon after, it disappeared leaving no trace of what I have once contemplated on. Thus I wasted many times and my mental faculty as well, at the end of the day, I always ended up with a deep remorse.

Today I went to a library to check out a book for an essay on my graduate program. While searching for the book, strolling around bookshelves, a book caught my attention, "What the best college students do" by Ken Bain. I did not look for this book when I went by the library, but I picked it up without a hesitation. I have just read the index section of this book, and I feel this could be a life-changing book; because I feel I have been sticking to a mediocre way to study, and it will definitely yield an adverse effect.  

Let me encapsulate what the book says; by doing so I can reorganize my thinking. 
"Scores do not matter." "learning shallowly and strategically will jeopardize you." "there is no limit on your talent" "Think, question, and debate" "Love yourself" "Learn actively, not passively" and "Writing practice will strengthen your communication skill"

I think I already like this book. I remember when I started a good day and was able to think clearly, the day always went great, but it didn't last long. With this book, I want to learn more about me and challenge myself.