Even Universities Favor 'Sajja' Majors... Students Eyeing Law Schools and Medical Schools

Jinhaksa, Analysis of Popular Majors by Era at SKY (Seoyeongo)

The popularity of so-called 'sajja' professions such as doctors, judges, prosecutors, and lawyers is steadily increasing. This trend is clearly reflected in the changes in popular university majors over time.

On the 5th, the admissions company JinHakSa released data analyzing the popularity of majors over 70 years by examining the admission scores by department at Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Korea University from the 1964 academic year to the 2023 academic year.

In the natural sciences, for example, the pre-medical program at Seoul National University was at a mid-level comparable to engineering schools in the 1960s but rose to the top tier after the 1980s. Korea University first established its pre-medical program in the 1971 academic year, ranking third after Industrial Management and Industrial Engineering, and has maintained a top-tier status since then. At Yonsei University, the pre-medical program has been a representative popular major since the 1960s, and while the pre-dentistry program was mid-tier until the 1970s, it is now the second most preferred after pre-medical.

During the 1960s and 1970s, all these universities saw chemical engineering as the most popular major, and majors related to electrical and electronic engineering, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering have remained popular from the 1960s through the 2020s. In the 1980s, physics in the natural sciences attracted top talents alongside engineering, but currently, the preference for physics has significantly declined.

Majors related to chemistry and life sciences saw a rise in popularity in the 2010s. However, this was more due to students aiming to enter medical professional graduate schools rather than pursuing basic science fields. With the abolition of medical professional graduate schools, the popularity of related majors has been overtaken by advanced computer-related majors. Since the 2020 academic year, the popularity of majors related to computers, artificial intelligence, data science, and mobility has sharply increased in response to societal demand for advanced studies.

(Photo by Asia Economy DB)

In the humanities, changes in popular majors have been less dramatic compared to the natural sciences. Majors in business and economics, which started gaining popularity in the 1960s, as well as social science majors, remain popular. Since the 2000s, majors in journalism, media, and communication have gained popularity.

Majors in education, which were popular from the 1960s to the 2000s, have seen a decline in popularity due to difficulties in teacher employment caused by a decrease in the school-age population. Except for Yonsei University, the popularity of language and humanities majors at Seoul National University and Korea University has not been very high, a trend linked to employment concerns since the 2000s and continuing to the present.

Since the establishment of law schools (professional graduate schools of law) in 2009, law departments have been phased out at universities, and the popularity of the College of Liberal Studies, which is advantageous for law school applications, has continued.

Woo Yeon-cheol, head of the Admissions Strategy Research Institute at JinHakSa, analyzed, “As the criteria for choosing majors have shifted toward practical studies linked to employment, the popularity of natural science majors has been reorganized around medical, pharmaceutical, and computer-related fields, and this trend is expected to continue. In the humanities, the decline in competition rates for education and teacher training majors, caused by a decrease in the school-age population and resulting employment difficulties, is likely to persist for some time.”

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