Analysis of young people's perception on engineering in Korea

The phenomenon of avoidance of engineering has been prevalent among young students in Korea. This will have negative effects on national competitiveness. Understanding their perception on engineering would be the first step to boost this area, we surveyed secondary school students about general knowledge about several engineering areas, application domains, their thought about the status of engineer, preferred courses, decision time for future career, person/media affecting their decision on their career, etc. We found the significant difference in perception by different age and gender groups. The results of this paper are expected to be used as insightful feedback information to establishing a youth engineering adventure program in Korea.