This ethnographic study investigated campus life among the students of a women's university in Seoul, with the aim of understanding the process of self-supporting through which they grow up to be self-reliant adults. The study focused on three questions : (1) How is the process of self-supporting related to the students' paths in life before the graduation as well as after that? (2) What cultural strategies are adopted to achieve the goal of self-supporting? (3) What is the meaning and function of higher education from the students' perspective, especially related to the scheme of self- supporting?
The following general conclusions were drawn from the findings: (1) Self-supporting is one of important 'developmental tasks' among Korean students ; (2) Female students have more difficulties than their male counterparts have on the way of self-supporting ; (3) The students are placed at a conflicting position between expected 'self-reliance' and unavoidable 'dependent' conditions ; (4) Some 'multiple investment strategies' are adopted by them to achieve the goal of self-supporting ; (5) When the female students are faced with sociocultural barriers, they are disposed to hold over the self-supporting itself after the graduation.