• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.113-171
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• 2017

Science and engineering college students, so-called engineering students, account for nearly half of Korean university students. Existing research on younger generations poses a question of young generation after the financial crisis as a 'genuine' survivalist who carries out 'passionate labor' to pursue 'ordinary life' and 'banal stability'. They are diagnosed as failing to "locate the course of their lives in relation to a larger being that transcends self". But is there a value that can replace the survival value in front of us today, which is possible to be practiced and narrated by the young generation of Korea, especially the engineering students? What value (if any) is not captured by survival value, and what mechanisms and processes can and can easily be used by engineering students? Our research uses interviews conducted at one research-centered science and engineering university in a local metropolitan city, Korea. In conclusion, we emphasize that a transformed version of developmental nationalism, in which individual scientists/engineers pursue their 'authentic' passion and unintentionally contribute to the development of the nation through byproducts of their research, exerts strong influence upon the formation of young engineering students' narratives linking their selfhood and the good.