According to KOSIS (a Korean statistics institution), life expectancy in Korea is 78.5 years old for men and 85.1 for women (2013). That is, we have very long time to live! After graduating from university, we will each get a certain job and the period that we will have to work will probably exceed our whole life span so far, 20~21 years. Therefore, it is important to contemplate our future jobs and we have to be careful what to do and how to live in the future. Hence, we wondered what thoughts our friends had and surveyed 73 people about their future dreams and interviewed three EIE students. The survey was conducted to find out the general opinions and the interviews were done to find out deeper reasons for their opinions.

 Surveys : for 73 people whose age is 20 or 21 (150706-07)

Interviews

     We interviewed three students to find out the deeper reasons why they did or did not have future dreams and what is important in making life decisions. Two of the students did not have a future dream and one student did.

     The two students who don’t have a future dream said that have had no chances to think about their futures, because they have been focusing on studying to enter university. When asked what they would do if the job that they want turns out to be different from their own major, they said they would study again and change their majors. Nevertheless, student 1 wants to get a job related to her major and student 2 thinks that she doesn’t have to get a job related to her major. Maybe this is because student 1 has role model, while student 2 doesn’t.

     The final question was about factors that they consider important when choosing a job. They thought that interest and stability are important factors, because interest can motivate them to study continuously and make their life happy, and stability is related to their lives. Also, they said that if there is no interest about their job, then they will get stress and be tired of the job easily.

    In contrast to Student 1 and Student 2, Student 3 has a dream. Student 3 has wanted to be a high school science teacher since her first years of high school. She was inspired by her teacher, so she felt that she wants to teach her favorite subject, Science, to students professionally and give a lot of love to them.

     To become a science teacher, she entered science education major. Nowadays, she is studying science really hard because teachers need thorough and professional knowledge about science. Furthermore, she is going to expand her science knowledge more deeply and is planning to prepare for the teacher certification examination from now on.

     In regard to the important factors in choosing a job for her standard, she thinks that “interest” is most important. She also thinks sociability with students, regular life pattern (commuting early in the morning), and sincerity in preparing class as well as interest are very important. Her role model is her homeroom teacher in the third grade of high school. In the end, she hopes to be an enthusiastic, great teacher who loves children sincerely and does her best to design students’ futures.

     These surveys and interviews offered us a precious opportunity to contemplate our future dreams and realize other friends’ values and opinions about their future. Through survey, we realized that more than half of the students had decided their future dreams. Of those who had not yet decided, the most common reason was the preoccupation with college entrance. Also, it was interesting that students value ‘interest’ the most when they determine their future career.

     Through interviews with EIE friends, it was interesting to listen to the opinions of both sides: students who had already decided their future dreams and those who hadn’t. We think both sides are correct and they have their own reasons. I hope we spend our rest of college life wisely designing our future well and achieving our future dreams!