The Older I Get, the More I Realize How Much I Still Have to Learn

Autumn is deepening.

The October night air feels unusually cold today.

It's Wednesday, the day I attend the S-META Executive Program in Virtual Convergence, AI Transformation, and Digital Assets at Sogang University.

Tonight's lecture is on "Ontology and AI Orchestration."

Every Wednesday, I take a few hours of leave and finish work early at five in the afternoon. Dressed, as usual, in a suit and tie, I make my way toward Geogujang, a restaurant near the university, and instinctively pull my jacket collar closer around my neck.

October is almost over already.

Come to think of it, the school life that began in June is also approaching its end.

Next week will be our final regular class, followed by the graduation ceremony the week after.

The S-META Executive Program is jointly organized by Sogang University's Graduate School of Virtual Convergence and its Graduate School of AI and Software.

This year, I joined its sixth cohort.

S-META holds a special place in my heart.

After earning my master's degree at Sogang University's Graduate School of Virtual Convergence and continuing into a doctoral program, I had always imagined this executive program as one final challenge I wanted to pursue after completing my PhD.

In my own mind, it was something like the ultimate stage of graduate education.

It was a place where CEOs, corporate executives, and experienced professionals from different industries gathered to discuss the future of business and technology.

As someone working in business development at KT, I assumed it would be difficult for a working-level professional like me to have the opportunity to study alongside such accomplished people.

I simply kept the idea in the back of my mind, thinking I might try someday if the opportunity ever arose.

Then, unexpectedly, that opportunity came this year.

With the approval of my academic advisor, Professor Seokkeun Lee, I was able to enroll.

I was delighted.

But I was also nervous.

Would I feel intimidated studying alongside people with decades of professional experience?

Would my presence as a working-level employee somehow diminish the prestige of the program?

With so much still to learn, what could I possibly gain from this place—and what could I contribute?

Looking back, however, I think I had known for a long time why I wanted to attend S-META so badly.

It was because of my professor.

In my mind, I affectionately call Professor Lee "Seokgeun-jwa," a playful Korean nickname expressing deep admiration and respect.

He is a mentor I genuinely admire and aspire to resemble.

He always looks impeccable in a suit. Despite his age, he carries himself with a remarkable combination of dignity and enthusiasm.

In fact, he somehow seems younger now than when I first met him five years ago.

Looking at his career is like tracing some of the defining chapters of South Korea's management consulting and financial history.

He worked at the global strategy consulting firm A.T. Kearney, served as the Asia-Pacific capital markets managing partner at Accenture, became the head of Arthur D. Little's Asian operations, and was the founding CEO of Roland Berger's Korean office.

He also participated in major projects that shaped turning points in the Korean economy, including the merger of Kookmin Bank and Korea Long-Term Credit Bank, the sale of Kia Motors, and Allianz's acquisition of First Life Insurance.

During the Asian financial crisis, he served as a private-sector adviser to the Financial Supervisory Commission's restructuring task force, contributing to the restructuring of Korea's financial industry.

He is a strategy consultant who helped design the futures of corporations—and an expert who participated in some of the country's most consequential economic transformations.

It still amazes me that I have the opportunity to learn business and management directly from someone like him.

A person who stood at the center of events I once read about only in the business pages of newspapers now sits before me, sharing his experiences and asking questions about business ideas I have been developing.

Where else could I have an experience like that?

More importantly, Professor Lee makes me reconsider the things I thought I already understood.

I remember preparing my master's degree project.

After carefully researching the subject and thinking through my ideas, I would confidently explain my conclusions.

Then the professor would ask a few questions.

And as I tried to answer them, the gaps in my reasoning would gradually become painfully obvious.

I had been so sure that I was well prepared.

Yet standing before him, my thoughts would become tangled, and words would fail me.

So this is how little I've actually thought things through.

My face would burn with embarrassment.

Sometimes I wanted nothing more than to disappear into a hole in the ground.

But something strange happened.

Whenever I left after confronting my own shortcomings, I wanted to study even harder.

His questions helped me recognize what I had overlooked and what I still needed to think about.

Pride played a part, too.

Surely I'm capable of more than this.

My pride had been wounded.

I believed I had studied hard and considered the problem seriously. Yet when confronted with the most important questions, I could not respond convincingly.

That bothered me.

So I dug deeper.

Next time, I wanted to stand before the professor with better ideas and stronger reasoning.

At the very least, I wanted to prove that I was capable of more.

Looking back, even that stubborn pride became a force that helped me grow.

Above all, I wanted to learn more deeply from Professor Lee because his philosophy of scholarship closely aligned with my own.

I believe academic knowledge should not remain confined to classrooms.

What we study and research should help solve real-world problems and, ideally, contribute to changing the world, even in small ways.

I sensed the same philosophy in his teaching.

He continually pushed me to think beyond how much knowledge I possessed.

What did that knowledge mean in the real world?

How could it be applied to actual business challenges?

His questions could be sharp and uncomfortable.

But that made them all the more valuable.

Just when I thought I had found an answer, another question would appear.

And as I wrestled with that question, problems and possibilities I had not previously noticed would slowly come into view.

Over time, I came to realize something important.

Knowing what I do not know can be just as important as knowing a great deal.

When I finally entered the S-META Executive Program I had long dreamed of attending, that learning extended beyond the classroom into encounters with other people.

Professor Lee's questions had broadened the way I viewed industries and management.

Now, through classmates who had spent decades working through challenges in their own fields, I was discovering entirely different worlds.

At first, simply sitting alongside them felt intimidating.

But as time passed, that sense of pressure gradually turned into anticipation and enjoyment.

What impressed me most was that the people with the greatest experience and achievements were often the least confined to their own thinking.

They asked serious questions about new technologies.

They listened carefully to different opinions.

They generously shared lessons from their successes and failures, yet never seemed to lose their desire to learn.

Watching them, I found myself thinking:

So this is what people mean when they say learning never ends.

They had their struggles, too.

Sometimes businesses fail to develop as planned.

Sometimes relationships leave us hurt.

Sometimes an uncertain future makes us question whether our decisions were right.

We worry, lose our balance, experience regret, and still find a way to move forward.

Isn't that what life is about?

All of us spend the week fighting our own battles.

Then every Wednesday, we return to school and share our stories.

Conversations often begin with business, technology, and the future of industry.

But as they deepen, the human concerns and personal lives behind those discussions slowly emerge.

At some point, titles such as CEO or executive—and even decades of experience—stop seeming particularly important.

What remains is the person sitting before you, doing their best to live their own life.

I loved those moments.

Perhaps that is why I eventually began looking forward to Wednesdays.

Our Classes Begin with Period Zero

I serve as the secretary-general of our sixth-cohort student association.

The role has made communicating with classmates even more enjoyable.

Having an official responsibility gives me a natural reason to contact people first and reach out to them.

The truth is that I enjoy meeting people and having conversations.

But even with good intentions, approaching someone first can sometimes feel awkward.

What if they feel uncomfortable?

What if they think I'm being unnecessarily intrusive?

Becoming secretary-general relieved some of those worries.

And I genuinely like the role.

It makes me happy to watch classmates who initially exchanged business cards and offered awkward greetings gradually begin asking about one another's lives, laughing together, and sharing their stories more openly.

Best of all, the position gives me a perfectly legitimate excuse to be a little nosy.

I can ask how people are doing, check in on their businesses, and occasionally offer opinions nobody specifically requested.

Fortunately, my classmates accept my meddling with openness and good humor.

Despite their extensive experience and seniority, they never dismiss my perspective simply because I am a working-level professional.

Sometimes they ask thoughtful questions about my ideas.

Other times they add their own experiences, helping me see a problem from a much broader perspective.

I am grateful for that.

My role gave me an excuse to approach them first.

But it was my classmates who made those relationships warm.

So I took advantage of my modest authority as secretary-general and gave names to two special parts of our school day.

Period Zero and Period Three.

These are the hours of learning that happen before and after our official classes.

Period Zero begins before the lecture.

The professor and classmates gather for dinner at Geogujang, a restaurant near the university.

Around the table sit company presidents, executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals with decades of experience.

But once everyone takes a seat, the first thing placed before them is not a business title.

It's a spoon and a pair of chopsticks.

"How has your week been?"

"How is that business project you mentioned last time coming along?"

"Did you ever resolve that problem?"

What begins as casual conversation soon develops into discussions about different industries and business challenges.

Someone shares an opportunity they see in an emerging market.

Another describes difficulties encountered while launching a new business.

Even when people face similar problems, they often approach them in entirely different ways.

I find these conversations fascinating.

No matter how hard I work, there are limits to the industries and responsibilities I can experience in my own career.

But here, I can learn from people who have spent decades working in completely different fields.

Something that seems obvious to one person can offer a new insight to another.

And sometimes my knowledge of technology and business creates possibilities that someone else had not considered.

A professional from the financial industry asks different questions from someone who has spent a career in manufacturing.

The perspective of someone running a company differs from that of someone developing a new business.

I like those differences.

If Professor Lee's classes teach me how to ask better questions, Period Zero teaches me how to examine those questions through other people's eyes.

Before we know it, the clock is approaching 6:30 p.m.

We finish dinner and head to the classroom.

Every week, the S-META Executive Program introduces us to new topics in AI transformation.

Shifting AI paradigms.

Agentic AI.

Multi-agent systems.

On-device AI.

Security token offerings and real-world assets.

Stablecoins.

Web3.

And enterprise strategies for AI transformation.

We do more than learn the technical definitions.

Together, we consider how these technologies might transform industries and corporate management, and what opportunities and risks they may create.

Sometimes a vague business idea becomes clearer during a lecture.

At other times, I discover unfamiliar challenges in a field I thought I already understood.

Simply listening to the lectures and hearing my classmates' questions is an education in itself.

Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way.

As I feel my perspective gradually expanding, it is suddenly nine o'clock at night.

Period Three Is Open!

There is a scene in the Korean television drama The Story of Manager Kim, Who Owns a Home in Seoul and Works at a Major Corporation.

After Manager Kim Nak-su, played by Ryu Seung-ryong, is transferred to the Asan factory, a production-line leader named Lee Ju-young, played by Jung Eun-chae, calls out to the employees at lunchtime:

"Time to eat!"

Every Wednesday, I make a similarly enthusiastic announcement in our KakaoTalk group chat and classroom.

"Period Three is open!"

Then I share the location.

Period Three is our special time together after the official lecture ends.

It began simply because I wanted the conversations to continue.

Of course, the response was not enthusiastic from the beginning.

During the first and second weeks, I boldly announced Period Three.

Both times, it ended up being an event attended by exactly one person.

Me.

It was a little embarrassing.

Well, I suppose everyone really is busy.

But things began to change in the third week.

Perhaps my classmates felt sorry for their lonely secretary-general, faithfully announcing a gathering nobody attended.

One by one, people began joining me.

Eventually, a dependable group of regulars emerged.

Now, more than eight people participate each week, and what began as my solitary experiment has become a genuinely warm gathering.

At first, I was the one trying to bring everyone together.

Now, I am the one looking forward to it.

There are no textbooks during Period Three.

There is no predetermined lecture topic.

Instead, the experiences accumulated over our lives become the teaching material.

At first, because everyone still felt a little awkward, we raised our glasses more often than we exchanged stories.

But several months later, conversation comes before the drinks.

We begin by discussing that evening's lecture.

Then the conversation naturally moves toward what each of us has experienced during the week.

Two weeks ago, the lecture focused on security token offerings and the token economy.

We discussed how tokenized securities might transform financial markets, what new asset markets could emerge, and which business models companies should prepare.

As the conversation unfolded, I arrived at an idea.

Perhaps the commercial success of tokenized securities will not ultimately depend on the technology that makes token issuance possible.

What matters more may be discovering assets that can retain recognized value over time and markets in which sustainable demand exists.

Technology can open a new market.

But technology alone cannot give people a reason to keep participating in that market.

Interestingly, the discussion did not end there.

At some point, it shifted toward HR—people and organizations.

How should organizations change when new technologies emerge?

Is preparing people to use technology more important than introducing the technology itself?

How do we move forward with colleagues who are uncomfortable with change?

We started with security token offerings.

Then we began discussing human resources.

And before we knew it, we were talking about people's feelings.

To me, that is the greatest charm of Period Three.

Knowledge acquired in a classroom meets the experiences of people who have actually worked in the world.

Those experiences transform abstract ideas into real problems.

And when we explore those problems together, the conversation moves beyond technology into organizations, people, and eventually our own lives.

Perhaps the real textbook of Period Three is the time we have lived.

Business rarely unfolds exactly according to plan.

Organizations do not change simply because a strategy says they should.

And human emotions certainly do not behave according to management textbooks.

As we talk, conversations gradually move from lecture topics toward personal experiences.

Someone describes conflicts encountered while leading an organization for many years.

Another talks about a business failure.

Someone else reflects on an important decision and shares the uncertainty they felt at the time.

In those moments, age and titles lose their significance.

We are simply people living our own lives, each carrying burdens that others cannot always see.

There are things we rarely discuss at work.

The more experience we accumulate, the harder it can become to admit weakness.

The greater our responsibilities, the more difficult it can feel to say, "I don't know."

Sometimes we feel expected to have answers for everyone.

Sometimes we feel we must never appear uncertain.

School was different.

Here, I could ask questions when I didn't understand something.

I could express a different opinion without hesitation.

I could simply listen to someone's experience and nod in admiration.

That was deeply comforting.

Perhaps we need places like this even more as we grow older.

Places where we can temporarily remove the heavy coat of our professional titles and return to being classmates, sharing our lives as ordinary people.

That is how we gradually became closer.

And that is what happened again this Wednesday night.

A Night That Began with Ontology and Ended with Black Goat Leadership

This week's lecture was about ontology and AI orchestration.

We explored how relationships between different data and concepts can be defined, and how multiple AI systems can perform their respective roles while cooperating toward a shared objective.

The topic was especially interesting because it connected directly to questions I had been considering in my work developing AI transformation businesses.

I listened closely during the lecture and brought several ideas into the conversation afterward.

Come to think of it, I really do talk a lot.

When a familiar topic comes up, I want to explain a little more.

When I see a new possibility, I want to discuss it with others.

I also enjoy sharing the mistakes I have made so that other people might avoid them.

Good grief. I've been talking nonstop again.

I have lost count of how many times I have thought that to myself on the way home.

But the conversation that began with ontology and AI orchestration gradually shifted toward leadership.

As we discussed how technologies and systems should cooperate, the question naturally became how people and organizations should move together.

At that moment, I found myself talking less and listening more.

The subject touched on something I had been thinking deeply about lately.

I have wanted to become a good leader for a long time.

Not simply because I wanted a higher position.

I wanted to build something with other people, help them grow, and lead an organization where individuals could fully realize their potential.

That desire made me think frequently about what a good leader should be.

But when I took on the role of group leader this year, more things changed than I had expected.

There was a considerable gap between the leader I had imagined becoming and the reality I encountered inside an organization.

Words spoken with good intentions were sometimes received differently than I had expected.

Decisions I made for someone else's benefit sometimes left me wondering whether I had truly done the right thing.

Above all, relationships were not as easy as I had imagined.

Looking back over the year, I found an unfamiliar loneliness lingering somewhere inside me.

Relationships that rarely continued unless I reached out first.

Lunches that never happened unless I was the one to suggest them.

And the possibility that the kindness I offered might not have mattered as much to others as it did to me.

Sometimes I felt quietly hurt.

But I was sincere.

I really only wanted to help.

Those thoughts kept circling in my mind.

And eventually, I began asking myself another question.

Where had my desire to become a good leader started to go wrong?

Perhaps my idea of a good senior colleague or a good leader was not necessarily the same as someone else's.

Then I realized something.

I had always believed I expected nothing in return.

But perhaps I did expect something.

Not money.

Not material rewards.

Just an occasional message asking how I was doing.

Someone remembering advice I had given.

Or perhaps, one day, hearing someone say that I had been a good senior colleague.

Maybe I had been quietly disappointed because those small expectations had not been fulfilled.

It took longer than I expected to admit this.

That does not mean my kindness was insincere.

I genuinely wanted those people to succeed.

But I now had to acknowledge that my sincerity had also contained a little of my own expectation and desire.

The conversation during Period Three that night brought this question into even sharper focus.

I had no idea that I would find an unexpected clue in a story about black goats.

Managers Control. Leaders Trust.

Among my classmates is someone I affectionately think of as "our wonderful father."

Whenever I speak with him, I sometimes experience a curious feeling.

I tend to use many words to explain a problem.

He, on the other hand, can often identify its essence in just a few sentences.

Perhaps that is the quiet confidence that comes only from decades of experience.

That evening, he spoke about the difference between managers and leaders.

This is how I understood his point.

A manager ensures that work proceeds according to plan.

Managers set targets, check schedules, monitor performance, and correct problems.

They make sure tasks are completed on time.

Organizations need people who can do these things.

But when management becomes excessive, it turns into micromanagement.

"Do it this way."

"Why isn't it finished yet?"

"Just follow the instructions I gave you."

When every small detail is controlled, employees gradually become accustomed to waiting for instructions rather than making decisions themselves.

Instead of developing their own ideas, they become focused on satisfying the expectations of their superiors.

A leader approaches things differently.

A leader establishes a direction and helps people understand why it matters.

Then the leader creates an environment in which team members can make decisions and take action independently.

Rather than dictating every method, a leader delegates meaningful authority.

When difficulties arise, the leader helps solve them.

When something fails, the leader shares responsibility.

A manager concentrates on ensuring that work moves forward correctly.

A leader helps people move forward on their own.

Of course, good leaders also need management skills.

Not every decision can be left to individual discretion.

Sometimes firm intervention is necessary.

But trusting people and giving them room to grow is fundamentally different from making people act according to one's own preferences.

As I listened, something struck me.

Wait a minute. Isn't he describing me?

I wanted my junior colleagues to succeed.

But perhaps I had been so eager to help them that I had not asked enough about how they wanted to grow.

I was busy explaining the path I had taken.

I was busy recommending the direction I believed was right.

I thought I was being kind.

But from their perspective, perhaps it was advice they had never asked for.

Perhaps the path I believed was best was not one they wanted to follow.

I wanted them to avoid the mistakes I had made.

But perhaps those mistakes were precisely the experiences they needed in order to learn.

That realization left me feeling a little bitter.

And just then, the classmate sitting across from me shared an interesting story.

A Black Goat Won't Move Just Because You Pull Its Collar

He told us about an acquaintance who raises black goats.

According to this acquaintance, black goats can be remarkably stubborn animals.

Try pulling one forward, and it plants its feet firmly on the ground.

Tug on its collar, and it refuses to move.

So what happens if you try pushing it from behind?

Apparently, that doesn't work either.

The goat simply resists.

But someone experienced in raising black goats does not necessarily try to force them forward.

Instead, he opens the gate.

And the goats walk out into the fields on their own.

They wander around, graze freely, and spend their time exploring.

Occasionally, one wanders away from the herd.

Only then does the farmer gently guide it back in the right direction.

At the end of the day, the goats return.

There is no need to drag them from the front or push them from behind.

They go out and come back on their own.

Well, isn't that just a story about people?

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

People can be much the same.

When someone tries to force us in a particular direction, we resist.

Even if the direction is objectively reasonable, we feel uncomfortable when it is not our own choice.

Being pushed from behind does not necessarily make us move faster.

Sometimes it only creates resentment.

But when we feel that we have made the choice ourselves, something changes.

We may move slowly, but we walk on our own feet.

If we fail, we get up again.

Most importantly, we recognize the path as our own.

Only then did the difference between a manager and a leader become clearer to me.

A manager might focus on getting the goats into the field at the appointed time.

A good leader, perhaps, is someone who opens the gate so the goats can walk toward the field themselves.

Of course, merely opening the gate and abandoning them would not be leadership.

Someone still needs to know which paths are safe.

Someone must intervene when danger appears.

And if one of the goats wanders too far away, someone should help it return.

Sometimes a leader must firmly correct the direction.

But underneath all these actions, there must be a fundamental belief.

They are capable of walking on their own.

Perhaps leadership is about never losing that belief.

I sat with the story for a long time.

And then I began reflecting on myself.

I had spent so much time wondering what more I could do to become a good senior colleague.

I had hardly considered what I should stop doing.

Period Three Ends at Eleven at Night

I was walking home after Period Three.

The cold wind slipped through my jacket.

Fallen leaves scattered beneath the streetlights and brushed against my shoes.

Crushed ginkgo leaves released their faint, distinctive smell.

On an ordinary night, I would have passed through the scene without paying much attention.

But that evening, I found myself walking more slowly.

The black goat story kept returning to my mind.

What have I really been doing all this time?

Looking back, I had always wanted to be someone who could help others.

I wanted to be a good senior colleague.

A dependable coworker.

And someday, a leader people could trust.

That was why I approached people first.

I bought meals, offered coffee, shared drinks, and listened to their stories.

I wanted them to experience even a little less of the hardship I had encountered.

I still believe that intention was genuine.

But after hearing the black goat story, I began to see something about myself that I had previously overlooked.

I had believed I was someone who opened doors for others.

Someone who helped people discover better paths and encouraged them to move forward.

But perhaps I had opened the gate and then failed to step aside.

That direction would be better.

You'll have a hard time if you do it that way.

Things would be easier if you followed my advice.

I watched which paths people chose.

When they moved in directions different from the ones I considered best, I quietly worried.

Sometimes I even felt hurt when they did not accept my advice.

I believed I wanted them to grow.

But perhaps part of me also wanted to remain necessary to that growth.

I had confused caring for someone with wanting to be appreciated by that person.

It is an embarrassing admission.

But that night, I did not want to turn away from it.

I Came to Study Technology, but I Am Learning About Life

It is a curious experience.

I enrolled in S-META to study the future of industries shaped by AI and digital assets.

But conversations during Period Three often move beyond technology into people, organizations, and life itself.

That evening was no different.

In class, we studied ontology and AI orchestration, considering how different systems could cooperate.

After class, we found ourselves discussing how people with different experiences and perspectives might move forward together.

At first, these seemed like entirely separate subjects.

But the more I thought about them, the more I noticed an interesting resemblance between the worlds of technology and human organizations.

Consider AI orchestration, the topic of our lecture.

Its essential purpose is to enable multiple AI systems to perform different roles while cooperating toward a shared objective.

The more complex a system becomes, the harder it is to control every action from a single central point.

Human organizations are not entirely different.

Of course, AI systems and human beings are not the same.

People do not respond to a few lines of instructions, and relationships do not behave as predictably as algorithms.

People have their own thoughts, emotions, experiences, and values.

That is precisely what makes leadership more difficult.

But it also raises a question.

Perhaps the leadership required in the age of AI transformation needs to change as well.

Maybe we need leaders who do not try to control every detail.

Leaders who establish a shared direction and create an environment where people can trust one another and cooperate.

Perhaps that was why the black goat story stayed with me so strongly.

Until now, I had focused on what I needed to know and do better in order to become a good leader.

But perhaps becoming a better leader requires more than adding knowledge and capabilities.

It may also require letting go of unnecessary interference and excessive expectations.

I want to become someone who does not drag people forward by the collar or push them from behind.

But I do not want to be someone who simply opens the gate and walks away, either.

I want to explain the direction we are moving together.

I want to offer a hand when someone encounters difficulties.

And I want to trust people to move forward at their own pace.

If they eventually leave for a wider field, I hope I can feel more happiness for them than sadness for myself.

That is the kind of person I want to become.

Of course, it will not be easy.

I still talk a lot.

I enjoy looking after people.

I want to share the lessons I have learned.

And sometimes I still feel disappointed when kindness I offer does not return in the way I had hoped.

Habits formed over many years do not disappear overnight.

But I want to begin changing, little by little.

Having passed forty and now approaching fifty, I am reminded of how much I still have to learn.

When I was younger, I might have felt embarrassed to admit that I still understood so little after living this long.

Tonight, strangely enough, I feel fortunate.

It means my thinking can still change.

It means familiar ways of living can still be reconsidered.

Perhaps growing older is not a process of gradually running out of things to learn.

Perhaps it is a process of slowly discovering what we truly need to learn.

I came to S-META to study AI and digital assets.

But over the past several months, I have studied the future of industry in the classroom and learned about people and life during Period Zero and Period Three.

Professor Lee's questions taught me the limits of what I thought I knew.

My classmates' experiences taught me that the way I have lived is not the only right way to live.

And tonight, I learned that becoming a good leader may require knowing what to let go of, just as much as knowing what to do.

Perhaps that is what returning to school later in life is really about.

Not simply accumulating new knowledge, but reconsidering beliefs we have held for years and learning to see familiar things differently.

Technology teaches us how the world may change.

Conversations with people make us ask what kind of person we want to become in that changing world.

I am learning both.

And perhaps that is the most meaningful gift I have received from the S-META Executive Program.

Tonight, the fact that I am still capable of learning something new feels far more important than the fact that I am approaching fifty.

Why We Need Better Schools as We Grow Older

As graduation approaches, I find myself asking another question.

Why should we return to school as we grow older?

Is it because we lack information?

Because we have nowhere else to acquire knowledge?

Probably not.

Today, anyone with enough motivation can attend lectures from world-class universities online.

When questions arise, we can ask AI.

Access to information has become easier than ever.

But something else has become more difficult.

Questioning whether what we already know is actually correct.

Encountering perspectives completely different from our own.

And, perhaps most importantly, meeting people who genuinely listen to us and are willing to tell us when we are wrong.

The longer we work, the more we tend to view the world through the perspectives of our own industries and organizations.

We accumulate experience.

But experience can also become a barrier to new ideas.

School is different.

Something I consider obvious may look entirely different to someone else.

A challenge I assumed was impossible may already be under way in another industry.

A problem I have struggled with for months may be something another person encountered years ago—and they may be willing to share the wisdom they gained from it.

So this is why learning like this matters.

Professor Lee's incisive questions helped me recognize the limits of my thinking.

My classmates' experiences gave those questions the weight of reality.

If one great teacher can change the direction of a person's life, learning alongside good companions can make that journey broader and richer.

Perhaps the greatest thing I gained from S-META was not the quantity of new knowledge.

It was the fact that I began asking different questions.

And that I met people willing to explore those questions with me.

At first, I noticed the titles printed on everyone's business cards.

But at some point, those people became classmates whose faces came immediately to mind whenever I heard their names.

Some were working hard to protect their businesses.

Others were searching for new opportunities.

Still others were thinking about how they wanted to live the next chapter of their lives.

Each of us was fighting a different battle.

But we all understood how exhausting those battles could be.

Perhaps that is why our conversations during Period Three sometimes carried a sense of camaraderie, almost like that shared by fellow soldiers.

When someone opened up about a difficult experience, another person would quietly nod.

"I've been through that, too."

Sometimes those few words offered more comfort than a long piece of advice.

I treasured those moments.

I went to school to study the future of industry.

Instead, I also found myself reconsidering the direction of my life.

And along the way, I met people I want to remember for a long time—and companions I hope will remain part of my life.

What Will Last Longer Than a Certificate

Next week will be our final regular class.

Our graduation ceremony is scheduled for November 4.

Fourteen weeks.

It was not a short period.

Yet now that the end is approaching, I feel reluctant to let it go.

Just when I feel we have finally become close, our weekly Wednesday gatherings are coming to an end.

Perhaps I am expecting something again.

I hope we can continue meeting after graduation.

I hope we can keep studying together, supporting one another's businesses and lives, and maintaining these relationships for many years.

In the past, I might have worried that these expectations would lead to disappointment.

I might have felt hurt in advance, imagining that relationships would fade unless I was the one who kept reaching out.

But this time, I want to think differently.

I want to remember the black goat leadership lesson.

Everyone has their own field.

For a while, we gathered in the same classroom, studying, laughing, and reflecting together.

After graduation, we will return to our respective lives.

Someone may launch a new business.

Someone may take on greater responsibilities within an organization.

Someone else may prepare for a completely different challenge.

We cannot walk every path together.

But perhaps that is not something to regret.

Finding our own ways through our own fields is precisely why we gathered here to learn and grow.

I hope we can contact one another occasionally when the road becomes difficult.

I hope we can comfortably exchange ideas when something new comes to mind.

And it would be wonderful if, even without any special occasion, we could gather again near the university, laugh, and share stories.

"Do you remember our Period Three gatherings?"

"Oh, those were such good times."

If we can laugh together over those memories, I think that alone would make me happy.

Looking back, the people I met through this executive program opened another door for me.

It was a door leading beyond the world I had grown accustomed to—a door through which I could see people and life from a different perspective.

Passing through it allowed me to discover a somewhat wider world.

And it gave me hope that I might become a slightly better person as I grow older.

Even If I Could Choose Again, I Would Return to the S-META Classroom at Sogang University

As I write this, I find myself quietly reflecting on the past several years.

One of the best decisions I made four years ago was enrolling in Sogang University's Graduate School of Metaverse, the first of its kind established in South Korea.

One of the best decisions I made last year was entering the doctoral program at Sogang University's Graduate School of Virtual Convergence.

And one of the best decisions I made this year was finally enrolling in the S-META Executive Program, which I had dreamed of attending for so long.

Looking back, these three decisions were different challenges, yet they formed one continuous path.

A desire to keep learning.

Curiosity about worlds I had not yet encountered.

And the hope that what I learned might help solve real-world problems.

When I first enrolled in S-META, I had many concerns.

Would I really belong here?

But now, as graduation approaches, those worries have quietly disappeared.

What mattered here was not how senior someone's position was or how much knowledge they already possessed.

What mattered more was what they still wanted to learn and how openly they were prepared to receive the experiences of others.

There is still so much I do not know.

But I can now examine the enormous changes brought by AI and digital assets from a somewhat broader perspective.

More importantly, I have met people with whom I can explore those changes.

Through them, I have begun asking myself again what kind of leader I want to become—and what kind of person I want to be as I grow older.

We graduate from many schools throughout our lives.

But that does not mean we should ever graduate from learning.

Perhaps the older we become, the more we need better schools.

Not schools that simply provide correct answers, but schools that help us ask better questions.

Schools where we can temporarily take off the heavy coat of our professional titles and return to being students again.

For me, Sogang University's S-META was such a place.

The graduation ceremony is almost here.

I feel sad knowing that the Wednesday evenings we took for granted will soon come to an end.

Strangely, though, it does not feel like an ending.

It feels more like the beginning of new relationships and new learning.

How different am I now from the person who first walked into that classroom?

It is difficult to say exactly.

But I know that my view of the world has become a little broader.

And I know that I want to understand people a little more deeply.

Above all, I am happy that there is still so much left for me to learn.

If someone were to ask me a question, I think I would know how to answer.

"What's the point of going back to school at your age?"

I would probably smile for a moment.

Then I would say:

"Now that I've done it, I understand. What you learn matters, of course. But I've come to realize just how much it matters who you learn alongside."

Even if I could make the choice all over again, I would take my seat in the S-META Executive Program classroom at Sogang University.

Written ahead of the completion of the sixth cohort of Sogang University's S-META Executive Program in Virtual Convergence, AI Transformation, and Digital Assets.

I wanted to preserve the memories of the people I met and the lessons we shared every Wednesday evening from the summer through the autumn of 2026.

October 23, 2026.

About the S-META Executive Program

For information about Sogang University's S-META Executive Program, please refer to the announcements published by the Graduate School of Virtual Convergence.

Recruitment for the 2027 executive program is expected to begin in April 2027.