hankyoreh

With no money or employment

Jeong, a 24-year-old fourth-year student at Dongguk University, declined to appear in this month’s graduation photograph by the school. His plan is to put off graduation until he succeeds in finding a job.

“What with putting off graduation because I can’t find a job, I don’t have the time to worry about graduation pictures,” Jeong said. “Even if I do succeed in getting a job and graduating, I’m not planning to take a picture because all my friends will have already graduated,” he added.

As severe employment woes lead more and more students to put off graduation, few and fewer are taking part in official school graduation photographs. May is typically the season for taking photographs for summer graduation - but the mood at campuses everywhere was grim.

A scheduled group graduation photograph for one department in the Dongguk University College of Social Sciences on the morning of May 16 ended up postponed when not a single student showed up for it. Another graduation photograph for an engineering department drew just six students - fewer than the number of faculty members present. The photographer instructed the students to just stand among the professors.

The situation was similar at other universities. Soongsil University typically has around 1,000 students graduating every summer, but only around 80 appeared for the graduation photograph in May. Seoul Women‘s University has around 1,600 fourth-year students who are eligible to appear in graduation photographs; only 230 did.

The situation has left graduation photographers glum.

“The number of students taking graduation photographs has been dropping by 10-20% each year,” said one photographer who has traveled among around two dozen Seoul universities to take graduation photographs. “At this rate, it’s looking like college graduation albums are going to be a thing of the past.”

More and more students also opted to take their graduation pictures with friends, as even those who entered in the same year often have different graduation dates due to the job shortage. Cheon, a 23-year-old Sungkyunkwan University student who is getting ready to graduate, visited a studio with friends to have group pictures taken for a graduation album all their own. The main reason was that differing employment circumstances left even classmates who entered at the same time with different graduation dates.

“Most of the students in my class in the department have put off graduation to prepare for employment,” Cheon said.

“It doesn’t seem like it would be really meaningful to appear in a graduation photograph with people from the department that I hardly know.”

The cost of making themselves up and dressing for official photographs is another burden for students.

“It costs between 60,000 to 80,000 won (US$53-71) just for makeup and getting your hair done,” said Lee, a 23-year-old who graduated in February.

“You can’t be the only one taking just a regular picture when all your friends arrive done up, but it costs a lot to look good,” Lee explained. “So we were content to just take pictures among friends the day of the graduation ceremony instead of appearing in the official photograph.”

By Park Soo-jin, staff reporter

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