Have you ever questioned why you decided to go to university? If you are a student, or have been a student, you will recognize the common belief that going to university is essential for one’s life. Not surprisingly, this culture is deeply ingrained in South Korea, the country with the highest Educational Attainment (the highest level of education that an individual has completed, for ages 25~64) among OECD countries, not to mention the high competition rate for the so-called “prestigious” universities. Why are people competing so fiercely? To answer this question, we need to know about what values universities offer us, including higher-level education, campus life, and social experiences. Generally, the most important value would be education. We are all familiar with these words: Learning new information, taking exams, getting grades, right? Then, what is a “proper” education?
The movie Accepted (2006) draws questions about the traditional definition of education. The movie is about Bartleby, who was rejected by all the schools he applied to and he decides to pretend to be a student by making a fake university. It started as a temporary solution to impress his parents, but other students who failed to enter universities started to enroll in the fake university, and then things became complicated. Of course, there were no proper professors or facilities, so the students made their own classes about what they wanted to learn (ex. Day Dreaming,  Skateboarding, Blowing up stuff) ​and become teachers for themselves. The movie ends with Bartleby making a speech at the university establishment approval committee court, after being exposed by the officials about the fake school. At the court, the judge interrogates Bartleby on whether his so-called “college” is a proper educational institute, by asking if there is a faculty, a curriculum and facilities for students available at his school. Bartleby answers this question in the following way, “You do not need teachers or classrooms or fancy highbrow traditions and money to really learn. You just need people with a desire to better themselves and we got that by the ‘sh*tload’ at South Harmon.” This hit me in the head really hard. We call a university, or any educational institute “good” for their great facilities and famous teachers with specific curriculums. However, does “real” education occur inside such good schools? Tons of students sleep through expensive lectures, and memorize pointless facts just to receive scores. If students leave the school learning nothing but the fact that they completed a “good” course, it is hard to call that education. Like Bartleby said, I think education should be defined by its students. If there are people that want to learn something, having no teachers and classrooms is not a problem. It is true that honorable professors, giant libraries, and high-tech equipment can intensify and speed up learning. But, the point is that they just “help” you to learn, and are not essential to learning. The central component of learning is the student. Accordingly, proper education should be determined by the student’s willingness to learn and how much they have achieved their learning goal, not by the quality of the learning environment. Accepted is a comedy, but is valuable because it helps us realize the main point of learning that people easily miss. I hope that my article provided an opportunity for students and teachers to reconsider their views on education.