By Kang Gahui and Kim Young Shin

The dream jobs of Korean students have grown more diversified thanks to the influence of the internet and YouTube.

The Ministry of Education and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training (KRIVET) conducted a survey on the dream jobs of 27,265 students in elementary, middle and high school. The number of new occupations rose on the list from that on last year’s list, and a wider range of professions in medicine, natural science and engineering was represented.

A notable first-time entry into the top 10 list of dream jobs of elementary students was internet broadcaster, or YouTuber. The job’s rank surged from last year, when it did not even crack the top 20.

The most popular job on the list was athlete, replacing teacher that had kept the top position for a decade. This could be because of major sports events held this year such as the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the Asian Games and the World Cup soccer finals.

Breaking the top 10 list for middle schoolers were jobs in the beauty design sector such as hairdresser, make-up artist, nail artist, tattooist and beauty manager, as well as musician or composer. New entries on the high school list were beauty designer and bio or natural scientist.

Students were also more specific with their career goals.

Medical occupations in previous polls had been largely divided into doctor and nurse in the dream job survey, but students in this year’s poll named other occupations in health and welfare. The science and engineering sectors were also further broken down into chemist, bio scientist and computer scientist.

Over half of the students said they chose their desired occupation because they like it and are good at it.

“The younger the age, the more students are likely to be influenced by media such as internet broadcasting and TV,” a KRIVET researcher said. “Other reasons that explain the rise of such jobs’ rankings are the rise of new jobs such as YouTuber and beauty designer as professions and changing social perceptions of those jobs.”

Choi Eun-ok, an official at the Lifelong Learning and Future Education Bureau of the Ministry of Education, said, “The more diversified and specified list of dream jobs means that students are more actively searching for a career,” adding, “The ministry will help aid students find careers that they like and are good at so that they can plan for a happy life ahead.”

* Top 10 Dream Jobs of Elementary, Middle & High School Students in 2018

Rank	Elementary School	Middle School	High School
1	Athlete	Teacher	Teacher
2	Teacher	Police officer	Nurse
3	Doctor	Doctor	Police officer
4	Chef	Athlete	Beauty designer
5	Internet broadcaster	Chef	Military officer
6	Police officer	Beauty designer	Architect/architectural designer
7	Legal expert	Military officer	Bio/natural scientist
8	Singer	Civil servant	Computer engineer/software developer
9	Professional video gamer	Musician/composer	Flight attendant
10	Baker	Computer engineer/software developer	Civil servant

kgh89@korea.kr