48th

Today I heard a story from my friend Kwak. Back when she was applying to colleges, she applied to study film production at a university in Seoul. The university required all applicants to take an entrance exam, so she flew all the way from Jeju to Seoul. However, when the time came, she didn't go to the university because she was too afraid to take the test. "I didn't go to the testing site. Instead, I went to watch a movie near the university," she said. I pictured a teenage Kwak sitting in a dark theater, thinking she would now have to give up her dream of studying film. I wondered how many dreams are killed in this country because of an authoritarian education system that ranks students by their test scores and determines their worth accordingly. Until a few years ago, I often had nightmares about failing in high school or college. In these dreams, I'd realize that I hadn't attended a class for an entire semester, or I'd walk into a classroom and find out there was an exam I knew…

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