Drift Reality > South Korea > Why Korea? Part 1

If there is any real truth as to why I decided to pack 60 kg worth of luggage and travel half way across the country, it is that I had nothing better to do.

The idea initially sprung into my mind during the spring semester of my senior year at Georgetown University, when I was desperately searching the Internet for a way to not be unemployed after I graduated.

On a job web site, I had filled in the following fields of interest:

1) arts/entertainment/media - After all, I had spent the past four years studying music and English culture. Plus, this category sounded like a lot of fun.

2) internet/e-commerce - I threw this in because I had spent the past Summer making on-line advertisements for a small business located near my home in Cleveland, Ohio. I had learned how to use a particular type of software that I was sure would open doors for me.

3) Information technology - I added this field because, well, I felt that it had a lot of potential for upward expansion and it was an exciting and innovative field. This is what I would have told anyone who had asked me why I was interested in a job in information technology. The truth is that I could not really explain what exactly information technology was and I don't even think I had made the connection between the words "information" and "technology," and the commonly used acronym IT.

At any rate, I waited in excited anticipation as the job search commenced. Slowly, the blue screen that was to show me my future offered me the following list:

1) Java developer
2) senior consultant
3) web programmer
4) senior Java developer
5) receptionist

This was not what I had expected at all. Instantaneously, I began to imagine myself at thirty years of age, sitting and playing games on my Nintendo game system as I waited for my Mom to drive me to the local theater where I would sell popcorn for five hours.

I quickly scrolled down the list and I found something called VB developer with C++/Visual C++. This sounded like some kind of job on a spaceship to me, but out of curiosity, I decided to see what the job qualifications were like. This is what I found:

Technical skills: Perl, HTML, CGI, Java Active X, Visual Basic, ASP, IIS, C, C++. Mainframe experience: CICS, MQ, TSO, COBOL, DB2, Oracle. Use of triggers and stored procedures a big plus.

"Wow!" I thought to myself. "Thank God I learned how to use triggers and stored procedures."

I looked at the next job, which was entitled "web design." Now, here was a sure bet. The software that I had learned at my job was becoming increasingly popular on the internet and I was sure that all of these web design jobs were looking for someone who had experience with it. I was right, the job listed my software, but then proceeded to also list "HTML, DHTML, ASP, VB Script, Java Script, Database Interface (Oracle/SQL server), excellent capability with web browsers."

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