This blog post examines how the experience of establishing an opinion-gathering system as student council president and driving change in school operations translates into competencies for an administrative career path. It also introduces how communication skills and problem-solving abilities function as strengths in academic plans.
Writing About Academic Experience and Reflections
“Acquiring a broad foundation in the humanities”
Many students focus their learning primarily on core subjects like language, math, and foreign languages for college entrance exams. In contrast, relatively few students invest significant time and depth into social studies subjects. However, universities are places for academic research, and the humanities form the foundation for all academic disciplines. Therefore, to become a humanities-oriented talent who considers societal development, I began studying the humanities during high school.
Studying the humanities doesn’t have to be grand; I started with the content presented in the social studies subjects. Subjects like Korean History, World History, Ethics, and Social Culture all contained the foundations of the humanities. Especially in Social Culture, analyzing current affairs and everyday social issues from an analytical perspective greatly helped build foundational knowledge. The ethics course, meanwhile, covered a great deal of philosophical content and proved beneficial for learning the names and theories of unfamiliar philosophers and thinkers. Korean and world history courses provided a broad overview of the major currents in the study of thought, integrating Eastern and Western philosophies. After acquiring this foundational knowledge and general understanding, I took humanities special lectures through EBS.
These humanities lectures were renowned among test-takers for essay preparation. They introduced diverse humanities topics, ranging from understanding Eastern thought through the Doctrine of the Mean to grasping Western thought via the Renaissance era, covering thinkers like Nietzsche and Laozi. Honestly, even with the foundational knowledge gained from social studies, it wasn’t easy to dive straight into the lectures. Even when I grasped the lecture’s content broadly, I struggled to truly internalize it. So, I selected and read the book ‘Humanities Concert,’ striving to understand introductory discussions in philosophy, psychology, history, religion, culture, and ethics. When further explanation was needed during lectures, I studied by finding and reading related content through this book’s table of contents.
Major Campus Activities and Reflections
“Elected as Student Body President to Realize Autonomous Administration”
I was elected as Student Body President during high school and served as a student council officer. I ran alongside a friend who was the Student Affairs President at the time, and we were fairly elected on a platform of student welfare pledges. I did my utmost to fulfill the pledges I mentioned. I presented three main student welfare pledges. Other candidates either made exaggerated pledges that were difficult to fulfill or presented too many pledges, making their feasibility unclear. However, I emphasized that my three pledges were achievable and presented myself as a trustworthy student council president.
The three pledges I advocated and implemented are as follows. First, considering the very small role the student council played in school operations, I proposed increasing its influence from 30 percent to over 50 percent. While the concept of over half the decision-making power might not immediately resonate with ordinary students, I anticipated that achieving this pledge alone would significantly change the school atmosphere. As a private school, our institution had long faced issues with improper budget management, such as board chairman corruption and problems with meal expenses. Despite efforts like dispatching external budget oversight teams and strong sanctions by parent committee members, these corruption issues remained largely unresolved. Therefore, I proposed the possibility of the student council itself addressing these problems.
This pledge marked the beginning of my student council presidency and involved a challenging process to implement. The atmosphere at our school was not favorable toward the student council, neither from the school itself nor the principal. Therefore, to push for a plan that increased the emphasis on discipline itself, I conducted a survey targeting all students and held a protest for revising the disciplinary rules. This protest was not an act of neglecting academics; it involved setting up tents on school grounds, conducting the survey, and printing the results to promote them to the school’s management committee. Our efforts led to the consideration of a phased increase in the emphasis on discipline, opening the possibility for the remaining two student council pledges to be implemented.
The realization of the first pledge made the student council’s autonomous and administrative departments busier, and student council meetings were held frequently. As president, rather than trying to lead everything myself, I aimed to increase the sense of responsibility among student council officers and foster their autonomy. Typically, in schools, the student council exists only in name, and meetings are held without much significance. However, I sought to break this conventional wisdom, create a new atmosphere for the student council, and strive to implement welfare policies. The remaining two pledges were student welfare initiatives: comprehensive improvements to the cafeteria and school store. I believed proper eating habits were crucial for students’ academic performance. There were issues with the unfair selection process for vendors operating in the cafeteria and store. We addressed this by implementing a public bidding process, successfully replacing the existing vendors. The new vendors, selected through fair competition, introduced eco-friendly ingredients and nutritionally balanced foods, earning widespread student approval.
Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation and Reflections
“Opening a Communication Channel to Gather Diverse Policy Ideas”
As student council president, my third pledge was to open channels of communication. Previously, our school’s atmosphere made it difficult for students to have their opinions reflected in school operations. Problems raised weren’t resolved, and issues weren’t improved. For example, an old basketball court wasn’t repaired, preventing students from exercising properly. The school administration would simply respond that if sports equipment broke down, it was actually a good thing because students could study more during that time. To improve this incomprehensible school management, I made a pledge to gather policy ideas from students and reflect meaningful proposals.
Until then, there was no specific communication channel for students. Even the student council meetings that did exist were attended by officers more as a way to kill time than out of genuine commitment. So, I decided to operate the student council meetings as open sessions. I established a rule that even officers wouldn’t be required to attend; only students who wanted to participate could come, and they had to prepare at least one personal opinion to bring. And since it was open, I also created a channel for regular students to submit proposals by writing them up and submitting them separately or presenting them directly at the meeting if they had suggestions.
When we opened the student council meetings, more students participated than expected. A suggestion was made to increase the number of suggestion boxes, so we installed them throughout the school to accommodate written feedback. We also repurposed unused public phones into a direct line for the student council, allowing students to call anytime during operating hours to voice their opinions. While some suggested that prank calls might come in and that submissions should be required via proposal forms, not a single prank call was received after implementation. Instead, we received many calls from students seriously requesting improvements and expressing support for the student council’s efforts. In this way, I improved the system for gathering diverse ideas, opened channels for communication, and created a new school atmosphere.
Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation and Career Plans
“A Future District Mayor Advancing Education and Welfare Initiatives”
My dream is to become a future district mayor. This dream stems from my love for the region where I was born and raised, and my belief in the importance of autonomous administration and politics. I still consider the profession of politician a realistic dream, and I believe an era will come where those who study politics can strive to manage their own regions. Therefore, I applied to the Department of Autonomous Administration to become a district mayor who will further develop our region and manage it with dedication and affection.
While a district mayor is a politician, I believe they are closer to an administrator than a politician, and closer to an artist than an administrator. Among artists, a conductor must understand music and compositions and possess the ability to interpret a piece in their own way. They must also have the skill to appropriately direct the various instrumentalists performing it. In that sense, an administrator can be seen as an artist who conducts the various departments of the district office to play harmoniously, ensuring proper administrative procedures are followed. Therefore, the fundamental requirements for an administrator would be a humanities background, an understanding of politics and administration, and comprehensive knowledge of administrative procedures and leadership.
Among these, I consider a humanities background to be the most crucial. Even in today’s society, where learning and research are highly valued, the importance of the humanities is rarely emphasized. No matter how intelligent a politician may be, without a broad perspective encompassing diverse members of society, they will advocate only narrow-minded systems. No matter how long a professor’s academic career or how much they have studied, if they cannot understand the students’ circumstances, they will be stuck in their own stagnant waters of stubbornness. Therefore, to cultivate my humanities background, I read relevant books and attended lectures starting in high school. As a result, I resolved to become a leader who establishes new education and welfare systems. Uniting the hearts of local community members will be achieved through expanding educational and welfare opportunities that contribute to the quality of life for the majority, broadening the scope of beneficiaries, and diversifying programs. I aspire to be the person who puts this into practice.
