Warm heart toward world
By Park Hee-jung
The poem “Youth” by Samuel Ullman begins:
“Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees;
It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.
We grow old by deserting our ideals.”
The United States is an innovative country that started from freedom. From Edison to Microsoft, from Apple to Google, from Facebook to the electric car manufacturer Tesla and high-tech industry, and furthermore, with recent developments in extracting shale oil, it continues to be innovative. New York City is the home of Wall Street, the center of world finance, a leader in the arts such as fashion and music, and the headquarters of many global companies. This geographically small city is surrounded with dynamic energy and vitality.
When I took a recent business trip to NYC in 2012, I noticed one difference from my previous visit. It was the presence of blue bikes everywhere. They are called “city bikes.” There are now 12,000 city bikes in NYC, which can be used anywhere. The bike-sharing system in NYC is designed to address traffic congestion. The city recognized a social issue, traffic congestion, and tried to resolve it.
Making new value in the process of solving a social problem in an original and innovative way has been also called “social entrepreneurship.” Another example of NYC’s social entrepreneurship was the recent issuance to 8 million New Yorkers of IDNYC (ID for NYC residents). With this, NYC continues cultural innovation by providing numerous benefits to city residents including museums, zoos, fitness centers, theaters and cultural events among others. This was also mentioned by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the 2015 Young Leaders for UN Millennium Development Goals dinner I attended.
The flow of change is rapid everywhere. That's why it is difficult for the law keep up with the times. The wind of change is also blowing into the law school system of the USA, which has been run stably for more than 50 years. A voice of innovation is heard, claiming the expansion of the law school admission test from the previous LSAT (Law School Admission Test) to the GRE (Graduate Record Examination).
Like that, the domain of the law is also changing, forcing lawyers to adjust. Korea's law school system, which has just started, is in the midst of suffering. It has a long way to go. Even the USA, which is 50 years ahead of Korea, keeps innovating, seeking diversification in admission tests and changes to the bar exam.
Lately, Harvard University announced that its admission system would be extensively reformed. Noting that the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) can be optional, a university official stated that a revolution is needed in America's college admissions system. The gist of the Harvard Report is that a warm heart is more important than intelligence. It emphasizes the common good and mental attitude of a world citizen and above all, it declares it will give the highest admission precedence to students who contribute to their family and the community.
We are all in the same boat, in which we have to live together. This is the age in which sharing love, fruits and the future, and living together is innovation. Like the Doore community, a farmers' cooperative group, and the Saemaul Movement ― the 1970s Korean style community development for a stable process in social change along with head-heart-hand-health ― of our parents, I hope Korea will become such a culturally beautiful country, with its people knowing the importance of family and considering others as world citizens.
The writer is a team leader of international legal affairs in Law firm Seunglim. He is a legal advisor for the President's Office of the World Federation of United Nations Associations and in the public sector for Nemo Partners Consulting Company. He is also a management advisor for Summit International Capital. He is the author of four books in Korean. Write to heejung1009@gmail.com.