Jaesusaeng () is a

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

term for graduated

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

students who decide to spend a year studying to re-take the

College Scholastic Ability Test The College Scholastic Ability Test or CSAT (), also abbreviated as Suneung (), is a standardised test which is recognised by South Korean universities. The Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) administers the annual test on the t ...

, hoping to get a higher score and enter the university of their choice. Attending university has a major impact on their future careers. The equivalent term in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

is ''

rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a ''rōnin'' ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a ''rō ...

''.

Social context

Gaining entrance to the extremely competitive and prestigious

SKY universities SKY is an unofficial grouping and acronym for the three most prestigious and academically competitive universities located in Seoul, South Korea. It consists of Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. The term is w ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

requires that some students become ''jaesusaeng'' after an initial less-than-stellar performance on the national exam. Korea is "prepossessed by social status and reputation," and a SKY education is the main way to gain

social status Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honour, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members ...

. Generally, the public education system is not enough to prepare students for the exam, so most students attend after school lessons at various ''

hagwon (; ) is a Korean term for a for-profit private educational institution. They are commonly likened to cram schools. Some consider ''hagwons'' as private language centers or academies operated like businesses apart from the South Korean public sch ...

'' (

cram school A cram school (colloquially: crammer, test prep, tuition center, or exam factory) is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or university, univer ...

s). The fierce competition for enrollment at prestigious universities is called "entrance exam war" ().

Effects

The stress from constant study and limited social life as a student have contributed to an increase in

suicide in South Korea South Korea has the fourth highest suicide rate in the world and the highest among OECD countries. The elderly in South Korea are at the highest risk of suicide, but deaths from teen suicide have been rising since 2010. In 2022 suicide caused ...

; for children aged 10 to 19 years old, suicide is the second most common cause of death in the country.

Related term

When a student fails to earn an adequate score over 3 or more years, he may be derisively referred to as a ''jangsusaeng'' () a

play on words Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phone ...

from the expression "Please live a long life" said to elders (). Beginning around 2010, the word "N susaeng" () is in common use, wherein the

Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...

''jang'' (, meaning "long") is replaced with the Latin letter N, which represents the undefined number of times the student is taking the test.

References

Academic pressure in East Asian culture Education in South Korea Korean words and phrases Neologisms Students in South Korea Culture of South Korea {{korea-stub