'Middle School Student from 9 Years Ago Returns as Samsung Engineer'... Dream Class New Start

Samsung Completely Revamps CSR 'Dream Class' for Youth After 9 Years
Tackling the 'Dream Gap' Beyond Educational Disparities

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] Samsung’s flagship youth education-centered social contribution (CSR) activity, ‘Dream Class,’ has restarted as version 2.0. It has undergone a complete overhaul nine years after its launch in 2012 to address educational disparities among youth. On the 1st, Samsung held an online commemorative event for ‘Dream Class 2.0’ at the Samsung Financial Campus in Seocho-dong, Seoul, unveiling an upgraded online education platform and new educational content focused on career exploration and future competency enhancement.

JY’s Special Dream Class, Tackling the Gap from Education to Dreams

Dream Class is a cornerstone of Samsung’s CSR activities dedicated solely to youth. The importance of Dream Class is evident from Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s repeated visits to the field to communicate with young people. Lee felt the need to revamp Dream Class early last year when COVID-19 began to spread. In April last year, five Samsung affiliates?Samsung Electronics, Samsung Welfare Foundation, Samsung Economic Research Institute, Human Resources Development Institute, and Multicampus?immediately formed a joint Dream Class restructuring task force (TF).

While Dream Class achieved the goal of providing a ‘ladder of hope’ by addressing educational disparities, a key issue at its inception in 2012, the rapid changes in the educational environment after COVID-19 led to calls for improvements in not only the educational methods but also the content and target audience. The TF’s research identified that polarization in Korean society extends beyond income and education to include disparities in dreams and hopes. This is why Dream Class 2.0 has redefined its direction toward nurturing youth’s dreams and hopes for the future. This aligns with Vice Chairman Lee’s past visit to Dream Class, where he emphasized the ‘value of dreams’ by saying, “The most important things to realize dreams are a warm heart and passion. Let’s have dreams and work hard with a warm heart, consideration for friends, and passion for studying.”

Dream Class 2.0 is characterized by its transformation from offline to a digital career and education platform. All 5,000 participating middle school students receive a Galaxy Tab A7 and can access a dedicated education platform anytime and anywhere without time or space constraints. The platform offers six key learning elements: diagnosis, learning, mentoring, community, incentives, and learning data. Additionally, a new career exploration program was introduced to help students find their own dreams and career paths. The curriculum has been significantly enhanced to include not only English and math but also the four major areas OECD identifies as future competencies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era: literacy, numeracy, global competency, and digital literacy educational content.

First Generation Middle School Students Return as Samsung Engineer Mentors

Dream Class 2.0 provides multi-dimensional mentoring involving university students, experts, and Samsung employees, strengthening the mentor-mentee connection. Previously, the 500 university student mentors mainly served as English and math ‘tutors,’ but now they act as ‘online homeroom teachers’ for middle school students. Furthermore, 50 experts in fields such as career guidance, software, and reading were selected to provide Q&A and feedback aligned with the new future competency education content.

A new career mentoring program involving 100 Samsung employees working in diverse fields such as developers, designers, doctors, and hoteliers has also been added as a form of talent donation. Jeong Eun-jin, an engineer in Samsung Electronics’ System LS Division who participated as a middle school student in the first year of Dream Class in 2012 and joined Samsung in 2019, said, “I don’t know if I can give back as much as I received, but if I can help even a little, I definitely want to contribute,” and willingly joined as an employee mentor.

Over the past nine years, Dream Class has invested a total of 190 billion KRW and produced 84,000 middle school students and 24,000 university student mentors. There is a virtuous cycle where middle school students who participated in Dream Class go on to university and return as mentors, and about 1,000 university student mentors have joined Samsung as employees.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.