고등학교 1학년 때 처음으로 기타를 접했고, 지금까지 계속 기타를 치고 있다. 그리고 대학교 1학년이 될 때까지는 빠르고 정확하게 기타를 연주하면 무조건 훌륭한 연주인 줄 알았다. 하지만 항상 그런 연주가 최고는 아니었음을 알았고, 이에 대해 내 생각을 간단히 적어보고자 한다.나는 기타 연주 중에서도 블루스를 정말 좋아해서 틈이 날 때마다 블루스 기타 연주를 들었다. 계속해서 연주를 듣다 보니 기타의 톤에 대해서도 조금씩 알게 됐고, 즉흥 연주가 어떻게 구성되는지, 기타리스트들은 어떤 지식을 기반으로 연주하는지도 조금은 알게 되었다. 기타에 흥미를 갖고 알아갈수록 더 많은 정보를 얻게 됐고, 다양한 연주를 찾아 들을수록 연주자마다 지닌 스타일의 차이를 알 수 있었다. 그러면서 점차 빠르고 화려한 연주보다 창의적이고 표현력이 짙은 연주를 찾게 됐고, 흔한 멜로디를 화려하게 연주하는 기타리스트보다 화려하지 않더라도 표현력이 좋은 기타 연주를 더욱 선호하게 됐다. 한 번은 John mayer라는 기타리스트가 버클리 음대생들 앞에서 연주하는 영상을 보았는데, 특정한 멜로디 라인에 학생들이 환호하였다. 2년 전 처음으로 그 영상을 보았을 때는 학생들의 환호를 이해할

연구실 환경에 대해 우리학교 학생들은 언제 처음 겪어보았을까? 학부 1학년 때 실험과목을 수강하면서 실험실을 처음 이용해 본 사람도 있을 것이고 과학고 졸업생이나 일반고 졸업생이더라도 실험에 관심이 있었던 경우 고등학교 때 이용했던 사람도 있을 것이다. 그러나 이런 실험실에서 이루어지는 실험들은 대다수가 이미 잘 알려진 매뉴얼대로만 진행하면 되는 실험이거나 아니면 조교들이 미리 실험을 해보는 과정을 통하여 안전성을 확인해본 실험들이었을 것이다. 실험에 대한 이해가 부족하여 일어나는 안전사고나 실험 설계가 잘못되어 일어나는 사고의 비중은 그리 크지 않다. 대부분 실험하는 과정에서 잠깐의 방심이 사고를 일으키는 경우가 많다. 아무리 연구실에 안전 대비 시설과 대응 매뉴얼이 잘 정리되어 있다 하더라도 실험자 본인이 이를 지키지 않는다면 의미가 없는 것이기 때문이다. 우리학교 연구실 상황은 어떨까. 이 기사를 통해 연구실 환경 자체에는 상당한 발전이 있었고 객관적인 지표로도 고무적인 결과를 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, 미래창조과학부가 제정한 신규 법안을 비롯하여 학교 자체적으로도 매뉴얼을 배부하여 안전 환경을 개선하고자 하는 노력이 있었다. 그러나 역시, 일어났던 사

To improve students’ competence about real work in society, to give them opportunity to experience society and determine their careers, POSTECH adjusted the semester and vacation schedule to 16 weeks semester, 3 months of summer vacation, and two months of winter vacation. For internships and other programs, POSTECH made agreements with more than 170 organizations including enterprises, and global and domestic institutes like Max Planck Institute, Canada Fields Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), etc. Furthermore, Undergraduate Research Program (URP) was also expected

The First Young Asian Scientist AwardProfessor Moon Jeong Park (CHEM) became the first Asian person to be awarded Hanwha-Total IUPAC Young Scientist Award 2016. This prize was created in 2004 and is awarded to a scientist under the age of 40 who has made great research achievements. Prof. Park made a great result in synthesizing hydrocarbon-based electrolyte membrane and lithium-sulfur battery. She shared this prize with Prof. Brent Sumerlin, who is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida, USA. IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) is nonprofit, non-gove

POSTECH’s basketball team, POBBA, is getting ready for the POSTECH-KAIST Science War. Eager to win this year, the athletes are practicing basketball in their summer vacation.

Wearable electronic devices became viable in real life as flexible polymers are being utilized in electronic devices. However, polymers with both high charge mobility and low crystallinity was needed to be used on high-tech devices.A POSTECH research team consisting of Prof. Taiho Park (CE), Prof. Chan E. Park (CE), Sung Y. Son (CE Integrated.), Yebyeol Kim (CE Integrated.) successfully synthesized a new polymer with high charge mobility and low crystallinity. This result overturned the conventional wisdom that crystallinity needs to be high to earn high charge mobility. The research was publi

Silicon, a widely used material in electronic engineering due to its cost-effectiveness and high purity, has been hard to use in optical science because it cannot emit light by itself.A joint research team composed of Professor Shin Hee Deuk (PYHS) and Professor Peter Rakich (YALE Applied Physics) succeeded in observing light amplification on a silicon chip by using the Brillouin scattering, a scattering caused by interaction between light and sound waves. The finding is presented in Nature Photonics. The research raised academia’s attention by combining light and sound waves. Researchers hope

Professor Seung-Ki Min’s team (SEE) found out that green-house gases affect the expansion of the ‘warm pool’. The team has discovered that the warm pool induces changes of downpours and typhoons in Australia and East Asia, including the Republic of Korea. Their research is published in Science Advances. ‘Warm pool’ means the hottest sea area located in the India-Pacific region. There are heavy rains around the warm pool that affect the atmospheric and water cycle on Earth. However, due to global warming, countries surrounding the warm pool are suffering from downpours and destroyed ecosystems.

A research team comprised of researchers from POSTECH, ASAN Medical Center and GIST successfully developed an advanced cell imaging technology using an antibiotic with multiphoton microscopy. The previous multiphoton microscopy was deemed too slow to be used in the field. The breakthrough came from a fluorescent antibiotic called moxifloxacin. The team proposed and tested its applications in ophthalmology and gastroenterology. As a result, they discovered that an imaging 10 times faster can be achieved using moxifloxacin as fluorescent staining for cells.The importance of this discovery lies i

Overcoming boundaries between universities, POSTECH, KAIST, and SNU (Seoul National University) opened a common class for the first time. While teaching Entrepreneurship and Venturing, the class is gaining attention as a model of an inter-university cooperative education course. The class was hosted by POSTECH during the summer vacation semester from Jul. 27 to Jul. 30. Fourteen, 11, and 15 students participated from POSTECH, KAIST, and SNU, respectively, learning entrepreneurship, technology innovation, practical training on business model, etc. The class was unique in the way it shifted from

POSTECH was selected as 8th university (first rank in Korea) in Asia University Rankings 2016 which Times Higher Education evaluated. The Times used the same index of evaluation as World University Rankings. For example, criteria like teaching, research, citations, industry income, international outlook and so on were used. However, importance of industry income became higher because distributive research becomes more significant assignment.POSTECH obtained high scores in citations and industry income, which shows its outstanding capabilities in research influence and academic-industrial coope

On Jul. 28 to Jul. 31, exchange camp between Korea National University of Arts (K-ARTS) and POSTECH was held in POSTECH. 9 students from K-ARTS and 13 students from POSTECH took part in the camp, and made precious experience. During the camp, participants conducted several activities such as experiencing agricultural village, building a bridge that can resist weight, and making a dress for summer vacation using straws and recycled clothes. The camp was organized by student union of both universities, as a result of continuous online conferences and two times of offline meeting in each universi

After launching the fourth generation synchrotron radiation in POSTECH, facilitating free electron X-rays laser with the 0.5 nm wavelength was successfully completed. This took place only two months after startup. The periods of Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS U.S.A.) and SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser (SACLA Japan) between startup and facilitating free electron X-rays laser are each two years, and 4 months. Considering these, this development is extremely fast.Meanwhile, in contrast to the third generation synchrotron radiation, X-rays laser from the fourth have lights a mill

Claiming ‘this is not an advertisement’ ironically induces significant advertisement effects, and this is the path that advertisements tread. While customers are getting better at avoiding advertisements which ‘seem like advertisements’, companies still have no choice but ‘advertise’. The reason being, the connected world has arrived, but that world still has originally been molded by Capitalism. The change starts from the fact that individuals can possess media. ‘Crazy Friday on colleagues’ was in fact a more fascinating subject than ‘Morning Dramas on TV’, but the former lacked the method of

Major change in this year in POSTECH was that the period of summer vacation has been increased. Main reason is SES (Summer Experience in Society) program. Until now, five times of vacations had been given to me. And I am sure that this vacation was the best one ever.SES was a valuable experience for me. I work at BME, abbreviation for Biomedical engineering, laboratory in Asan Medical Center, in Seoul. (BME studies the fusion of medicine and engineering. Typical example is a surgery robot.) Actually, I had no experience for utilizing my knowledge. It is ironic that I study hard to stack knowle

People say traveling widens one’s view about his/her life. I have traveled several times, and every time I ended the journeys, I thought “Is there anything I feel I have grown up?” Unfortunately, the answer was always “No”. However, through the journeys going to Russia, my view about journeys is changed. I have traveled three times to Russian which is not a favored country Koreans want to go. Surprisingly, I participated in a festival that participants are only Russians except for me and my friend. From the trip, I could conclude that what travel gives to us is understanding on myself, and dis

College students fiercely compete to sign up for courses they want. At POSTECH, registration operates on a first-come-first-served basis, which is common among other universities. In this system, mouse click speed, not necessity or a desire for a class, determines registration success. This creates a problem since people who register first instead of those who actually need the course are able to enroll in the course. Some universities have adopted new registration systems in attempt to fix this problem.Most notably, Yonsei University has used ‘Y-CES (Yonsei Course Enrollment System),’ which a

POSTECH is its own exclusive English education courses without alternative requirements for TOEFL or TOEIC. Thus, the English skills of graduate students of POSTECH inevitably become dependent on the university’s English education course. To investigate the circumstances and opinions about the current English education course, The Postech Times has gathered opinions of students and professors in POSTECH.Postechians’ point of viewPOSTECH has a unique system for English classes, called the English Certification Program. The system changed in 2008 from requiring TOEFL scores to taking compulsory

Technology allows us to live a comfortable and valuable life. Everything surrounding us including foods, clothings, and shelters cannot function without technology. Technologies surround us, but not every technology helps out our life. Tribes living in Amazon jungle do not need smartphones because they cannot utilize it, as people living in city do not feel the necessity to hunt and slaughter animals. “Appropriate” technology needs to be applied on appropriate situation to improve the quality of life.Appropriate technology is the technology that considers political, cultural, and environmental

Today’s world is a tumultuous one where everything is looked back again and remastered its best efficacy. Even the traditional systems, especially the ones that resisted the most against revising, are being challenged by agile startups. In short, it is a time of uncertainty for many people, as the landscape is shifting faster and tougher to read. ICISTS, the abbreviation for International Conference for the Integration of Science, Technology and Society, has been holding conventions that offered insight into today’s world since 2005. Every year, ICISTS-KAIST came up with the hottest contempora