What is the true 'spec'?

By Chung Ji-hye

“Upgrade your ‘spec’ during the winter vacation!” “How is his ‘spec?’”

These are words Korean college students speak and hear almost daily. There are probably not any students here who do not know what “spec” means, a word familiar even to their parents, teachers and nearly everyone else.

There are many types of “specs”: certificates, experience (especially those of studying abroad), and high scores in tests like TOEFL or TOEIC. For most college seniors, specs come as quite a burden.

In this country, where all kinds of illustrious and fanciful specs are overflowing, I feel somewhat bitter when I hear someone has “brilliant” specs. I feel rather embarrassed when others are showing off their specs like medals.

The term in question comes from the word “specification,” which also means “instruction” or “manual.” It is a “requirement which is clearly stated, for example, about the necessary features in the design of something,” says my English dictionary.

Why did the word spec originate from specification, then? More recently, people have come to use the word spec to compare performances of computer hardware or software.

Now, they are using it to compare performance of job applicants, but it is doubtful whether comparing humans to computers is an appropriate thing to do.

A person’s resume should not be the total number of certificates but his or her life story. Evaluators should focus on the special strengths one has and how they can help their business. They are not choosing a computer; they are choosing a person.

All human beings are different. Their strengths and temperaments also vary widely. Knowing one’s own strengths and focusing on them are what make our one’s abilities.

This of course is not to say qualifications and educational backgrounds are not important. It will be necessary to have certain degrees of foreign language proficiency and other qualifications to meet a company’s requirements.

It is also reasonable for employers to pick someone who meets their needs than does not. Yet I hope that this society regards specs, not as an illumination that makes a person brighter than he or she is, but as a scent emanating from a person implicitly. No less important is attitude. There is a world of difference between a person who learned a skill just as a spec and the one who absorbs it into his or her own character.

These days, newspapers and magazines are also frequently using the word registered on the list of neologism at the National Institute of the Korean Language. This means people no longer use the word as slang, but as a formally established term.

I am concerned that frequent use of this word might deprive people of dreams in the way they have long used the term. Specs should be the story or process of someone’s life, not its purpose.

However, something that should be a result has become a purpose. Young people tend to be bent on making specs without thinking what they want or what they dream of. They are not doing their best to realize what they dream, but they lock themselves in a room called “spec.”

It is time to put down the burden filled with various exam scores and diverse careers. Far more important than that is to look back on yourself, pay attention to you and love yourself.

Search for something that no one in the world can do but yourself. Find something that shines more when you do it than when anyone else does. Do not try to make specs; make experiences.

The writer is a senior majoring in English language in the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Her email address is anggoi@daum.net.