On Nov. 14, 2019, the 2020 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) took place. During my high school days, whenever the weather got colder, the CSAT was just around the corner and on all of our minds. Despite getting used to college life, the tension and solemnity of taking the test are still haunting. Back in the day, CSAT, a single examination was all there was to life. I was attending an autonomous private high school, so I did not pin high hopes on early admission where high school records were important. Instead, I intensely prepared for the regular admission. Luckily, I got accepted to PO

I always wanted to be an adult. A legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority, which is 19 in Korea. Receiving perfume and roses for Coming-of-Age Day, I remember thinking “Wow! I am finally an adult now.” However, I could not get rid of the idea that I was a mere child living in a grown body. I knew that many labels which modify myself cannot fully explain who I am.Generally speaking, a child “grows up” to be an “adult”. The growth is often expressed as a process in which the body and mind mature over time. If so, one can say that an adult is a person who lives with a mature

High-impact weather extremes such as heatwaves, floods, and tropical cyclones exert a profound impact on human society and ecosystems all around the world. East Asia is one of the regions with frequent occurrences of weather extremes. For example, Korea had a record hot and long summer heat wave last year, which affected our society and economy considerably including 48 heat-related deaths. This year, we are experiencing more typhoons than usual, which bring extreme winds and rainfalls, creating devastating impacts on our lives and infrastructures. Thus, understanding past and future changes i

Recently, there were two impressive situations in the cultural industry. The newest season of ‘South Park’, one of the most famous American animations, was removed from Chinese video platforms. Also, ‘Blizzard’, one of the biggest game companies, suspended a professional game player of Hearthstone (a mobile card game). Why did these things happen? That is because of China’s censorship. Nowadays, China is threatening the worldwide cultural industry that criticizes their government or the situation in Hong Kong. Companies that are warned by China have two choices. “Keep their protest to human ri

At the end of the spring semester this year, I was tired of school life. Yet, at the beginning of the semester, I was filled with expectations toward my new environment and knowledge to learn. However, excessive assignments and speedy lessons always made me run out of time, and it led to a lack of sleep. Moreover, I had not been back home to see my family for a long time, which made me mentally exhausted. As the exam period came, the situation became even worse. I concluded that I needed a long break to restore myself. Therefore, I decided not to do anything during the summer vacation.The firs

The modern society is changing faster than ever before. The main concepts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): superintelligence, hyperconnectivity, and convergence are already making their way into our everyday lives. At a time like this, a time of revolution, it is of paramount importance to positively adapt to the pace of change and maintain a flexible and tolerant mindset. Following the needs of this era, the educational community is making various preparations to foster young talents with flexible software thinking skills.The keywords for education that emerged from this social back

Why are we such pattern-seeking animals? Recently, I read an article claiming that we are genetically-wired to find patterns because it increases the probability of surviving. It said humans find and justify patterns to reduce the cost of our decisions. In fact, we receive a vast amount of information every day, and there is too much information for us to process. We interpret and store them differently by seeking patterns. It is surprising how humans are adept at finding patterns whether they exist or not. I wondered why we have such a pattern recognition ability and where our pattern-seeking

I have never worn the right size of clothes since I was a kid. Regardless of my taste, I always wore big clothes, hoping to be taller. The decisions I made before I entered POSTECH were no different. I went to a boarding school even though I hated group life. I chose a natural science track even though I liked Korean more than math, and entered a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)-based university even though I was not that good at chemistry. I seemed to have attempted something beyond my ability no matter what I liked or wanted. My school life was not easy, just as wearin

Do you like to travel? Then, what is your travel style? Each person has different ways of traveling and the worth of travel in one’s life is all different. I have traveled at least three places every vacation. With the start of the winter vacation last year, I have not only changed greatly in my style of traveling but also started to find the new worth of it. I used to plan a trip like ‘the one who will not be there again.’ Except for sleep time, I planned a tight schedule so that there were no breaks, and I felt like I had traveled only when I had looked around all the tourist attractions. Ph

In the passport photo I took in elementary school, in my middle school graduation photo, and even in the photo I took at my high school graduation ceremony, I wore the same glasses and had the same haircut. I did not like my haircut that much, but neither did I dislike it. My hair was simply the same haircut done by the same hairdresser at the same barber’s. Covering my forehead, same length all around, and making me indistinctive wherever I went, my hair was the haircut I had always had. My haircut was ‘me’.After the first semester of my freshmen year, I went on a trip to Europe alone and met

*Warning: This review contains pretty big spoilers to the movie and personal thoughts and analysis of the film. Aladdin (2019) is a live-action adaptation of Disney’s all-time beloved animation movie Aladdin (1992). It tells a story based on one of the folk tales of the One Thousand and One Nights. Alike the original production, Aladdin (2019) accompanies fantasy elements with lively music and extravagant choreography. In Korea alone, Aladdin (2019) has been visited by more than 10 million according to KOBIS and is still being starred in most theatres. Considering that it has been more than a

The Organelle Network Research Center (ONRC), which is attached to POSTECH, was selected and newly established in 2017 as a leading science research center development project (SRC) supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Research Foundation. In the ONRC, researchers from the life sciences department of POSTECH are working together with researchers from Seoul National University’s chemistry department, KAIST’s life sciences department, and the College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea to present a new principle to control life phenomena by the dynamic and complex

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… There was a little kid who studied English for 16 hours straight almost every day. You may think that the kid is a genius, but you are way off base. Actually, the kid is me. I will tell you a secret. I was highly absorbed in the animation ‘Bing Bang Boom’, made for learning English. The truth of the mystery is simple. I just loved watching animated features a lot. My parents were concerned, so they threw the video tapes away. It was a bad ending for me, but one thing is sure: They succeeded in stopping me watching it, but they failed to change my true

When I was a high school student, I had a plan for my life that I would enter a university in Seoul, enjoy a Seoul life for four years, come back to Busan, my hometown, and spend the rest of my life there. I assumed I would have hated Seoul since there are too many people and they are all busy. Though, I knew what Seoul life meant. There would be more than I had experienced for 19 years: many cultural events, different people with different backgrounds, various opportunities, and so on.But, fortunately and unfortunately, I entered POSTECH, which means I have to spend at least four years in Poh

1. LHC and ALICEThe LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is a powerful ring-shaped particle collider that lies across the border of Switzerland (Geneva) and France. It is 27 km in circumference and can collect data from collisions at the highest energy in the world since 2009. The LHC has contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson from proton-proton collisions, a particle whose existence was predicted by the standard model. Currently, research on the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang are being carried out by the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) collaboration. QGP (Quark-Gluon Pla

Last January, I went backpacking to Europe for a month alone, following my parent’s advice- one should go traveling at a young age, even if it gets one in debt. During this period, starting from London, I visited Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Interlaken, Venice, Munich, Praha, Vienna, and Budapest – a total of 11 different countries. During the first week of backpacking, I woke up early every day to tour famous tourist sites until it became pitch dark, just so that I could make the most out of the time and money I spent to get to Europe. I enjoyed appreciating the famous artwork (the Sun

I like physics. The metaphysical realm of quantum physics where things both exist and do not exist, the grandeur cosmos where galaxies swirl colossal stars all so silently, and the dancing of the invisible fundamental forces… These features were just too beautiful to me. My love for the natural science was so dogmatic, that I shrugged off all the discouraging advice such as ‘Physics does not get you money’ and ‘Physics is for geniuses’ and applied for physics on all my university applications. So, deducing from my rather physics-crazy introduction, readers would expect myself to be a physicist

About Brain Awareness WeekBrain Awareness Week (BAW) is a worldwide brain science festival that aims to share the development and the benefits of brain research with the public in hopes of popularizing brain science. The BAW, starting from March, annually coordinates with the partner organizations and provides various events to the public around the world. During the BAW, partner organizations promote the importance of brain research through enjoyable events and informative lectures to the public of all ages in their communities. The BAW, which was launched in 1996 with 160 organizations in th

This semester, Student Union of POSTECH has provided a couple of big cultural events for students to relieve their stress from academic work and to enjoy their campus life. Thanks to the freshman members who organized such events together, they were not formal or stiff but very free and fresh that many students were willing to participate in organizing the events.Student Union of POSTECH has majorly hosted three cultural events so far: POSTECH FEST, Highschool Uniform Day under Cherry Blossoms, and Before Sunrise.1) POSTECH FESTPOSTECH FEST is an annual beer festival of Student Union held in L

At the 24-hour library in POSTECH, many students study to prepare for quizzes and exams. Some even stay up all night. But why is everyone studying so hard? Some students may just like studying so much that they spend more than half of their day studying. But in general, I believe that the students are studying in order to gain economic freedom in the future. However, even they study so hard to make money later, they often seem surprisingly indifferent to the management and investing of money.In a recent class, the professor asked the students what they wanted in the near future. Most of the st