On Sept. 2023, Seong Keun Kim, the ninth President of POSTECH, took office. In commemoration of his inauguration, The Postech Times interviewed the new President. 1) Background to Acceptance and Values to Prioritize After being appointed as the President, I received a lot of congratulations, and among them, I remember the words “Create a proper university that Korea must have.” The academic attitude, in other words, the inquisitive attitude is still lacking in domestic universities. Many researchers seem to be more interested in research funds and publications. Likewise, students focus on shor

With the rise in catastrophic events, Pohang is unsafe from natural disasters. Pohang has already experienced a destructive earthquake in 2017, and Typhoon Hinnamnor, which hit Pohang in 2022, flooded facilities, damaged homes, and left considerable loss of life. With all these possible disaster threats, we should adequately prepare for natural disasters. As the first step of safety preparedness is awareness, The Postech Times interviewed Mr. Kyu Ho Shin from the General Affairs and Safety from our university. Please introduce General Affairs and Safety and its various roles. General Affairs a

My fellow professors, students, staff, alumni, and guests of POSTECH, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and greetings to all of you. It is with a great sense of responsibility I take office today as the ninth president of one of the most prestigious universities in Korea. As I prepared my inaugural speech, I took time to look back on the path POSTECH has taken over the past 37 years. I pondered what direction we should take with this second leap forward, how we can contribute to the development of our region and nation, and where we see ourselves in the future. Let me share my tho

Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, a Southeast Asian country, blended with the harmony of Asian, French, and American cultural influences. The Postech Times had an opportunity to visit Hanoi. Halong Bay, Sea of Dreamy Islands Halong Bay has crystal clear water filled with islands and islets topped by tropical woods. The cruise tour leads dozens of people to get on a junk boat and sail across thousands of islands and offers special activities like scuba diving, hiking, and caving. Halong Bay was formed through erosion from rain and sea for over 500 million years ago. There was a legend behind Hal

On the day I arrived at Noi Bai International Airport, it was full of moisture and warmth. My first Southeast Asian destination was Hanoi, and I was not concerned that I was five hours away from home by flight before I ate a rice noodles. I visited Vietnam as a reporter of The Postech Times and the first stop on my five-day journey kicked off in Hanoi. While I travelled around downtown, I was shocked by the road conditions which were considerably different from Korea. An enormous number of motorcycles blanketed the road, and it made for a chaotic scenery, mixed with crowds and cars. I wondered

The 2023 Sunrise Festival was a spectacular event that demonstrated the vibrant and dynamic campus culture that the POSTECH is committed to provide Postechians. The festival was a celebration of POSTECH's rich history and showcased hard work and dedication of the students over the years. The performances were breathtaking, captivating the hearts and minds of the POSTECH community, including local residents who were drawn to the festival's energy and excitement. The highlights of the festival were the performances by the various clubs. The dance club ‘Ctrl-D’ delivered an exhilarating p

During the Sunrise festival, there were multiple booths for students. Between 12 P. M. and 5 P. M., various organizations, including student governments and the Apple Developer Academy, as well as the school's clubs, prepared booths. The Art club Guerbois opened a booth for face painting for students. The booth prepared various designs such as flowers, hearts, butterflies, and PONIX. The club members painted other students’ faces based on the designs requested by them and operated booths that revealed the characteristics of the art club. Mania, a club that studies Japanese comics and cultu

Over the last few years, POSTECH has reported positive returns and jumps in the POSTECH Endowment. The Postech Times contacted Chang Yun Hyung, the Director of the Investment and Finance Team, to report how the endowment revenue is being utilized by the university and the future direction of the endowment management. The Investment and Finance Team is a department that manages corporate assets, including the POSTECH Endowment, and aims to improve profitability and stability. Seven members work in the financial field along with investment experts in the fields of bonds, stocks, and alternative

If I were to define my relationship with writing, my answer would be “a passionate pain”. Writing pains me, but at the same time makes me passionate, unlike anything else. Good writing is hard to accomplish, but the joy of having written a good article is an unsurpassable feeling. For me, writing is an art that requires craftsmanship, patience, and rhythm. Every writing has its own unique story, which I like just as much as the writing process itself. To be more specific, stories of people’s lives and thoughts intrigue me more than anything in the world. Getting to know someone’s story and the

As a kid, I loved to play with LEGO. The joy of the LEGO craft was searching for one fitting piece from a pile of blocks and assembling the selected pieces in the proper orientation. Writing uses a similar mechanism to building a LEGO work. The first step to writing is finding the right terms with definitions and connotations that match my situation. In the next step, I have to order the words so that the sentence convey my thoughts and intent. Although this process can be time-consuming, but finding unique words, sentences, and, eventually, text from an infinite possibility is the beauty of w

As an assistant reporter for The Postech Times, I am passionate about promoting a global perspective through journalism. I believe that the newspaper requires dedicated individuals who possess the necessary skills to tackle challenging issues, and I am confident in my abilities to do so. My goal is to convey the essence of POSTECH to audiences worldwide through my writing. My journalism life began in high school where I worked for an organization that produced and distributed school newsletters. During this time, I wrote articles covering industrial technology and student news. This experience

『The Road Not Taken』Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth:Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim….Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference This is part of a poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. The words “and I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference” always touched me. As a person who always dares to take a new road, beco

This winter vacation, The Postech Times visited Vietnam and got an opportunity to explore Vietnamese universities. On Jan. 16, we visited VinUniversity, an innovative and new university located in Hanoi, Vietnam. VinUniversity is a prestigious, private, not-for-profit university founded by Vingroup with the mission to develop talents for the future. The university integrates the models of excellent universities, with the aim of making a breakthrough in Vietnamese higher education, and aspires to become a world-class university. At VinUniversity, we had the honor of interviewing Professor Laure

Tell us about your background and your main focus in research. I was a mathematics student during my undergraduate studies and then I went for my Ph.D to Stanford’s aerospace engineering. The specific research area I focus on can be broadly categorized as optimization which is a mathematical way to model a problem from the world where you have to make a decision or prediction. Mathematics is a field that can be applied to lots of real-life problems. I felt math was an opportunity for me to go into any field after my undergrad which is the reason why I choose to study it. I imagine you are hear

Are there any innovative or unique programs that you would like to introduce to us? I can share with you the philosophy of VinUniversity. The unique motto is “follow very high international standards, especially from the top universities in the world.” The first program is the Ph.D. in Computer Science. We focus on three domains. The first domain is smart healthcare which helps to give smart medical services to many people. The second domain is new materials development. The third one is on environmental intelligence. The second program is undergraduate research. We train undergraduate student

Please briefly introduce yourself. My name is Do Danh Cuong. I completed an undergraduate degree in electronic engineering at Vietnam National University, and then I received the privilege to study at a graduate school in Korea for 2 years in the Master Engineering program (MEng). That was a very big chance for me in a real academic institution because at that time there were not any real academic institutions in Vietnam. In Korea, a lot of people were focusing on research topics and trying to improve things. Then after two years, I went to the Republic of Ireland for a Ph.D. The main reason I

Please introduce yourself. My name is Byeongjee Kang, and I am graduating from POSTECH this February with a double major in computer science and mathematics. My future plans include pursuing a graduate degree in a subfield of computer science, such as programming languages or formal methods. What does winning the Valedictorian mean to you? It is undoubtedly a matter of great pride for me to have achieved the status of Valedictorian. However, I do not wish to attribute undue importance to this distinction since a high GPA is not a guarantee of future success. My focus remains on striving to do

Every year at POSTECH, a majority of the departments hold an event called “OO Night,” where OO refers to the name of the department. The department faculty members, graduates, undergraduates, and freshmen students without majors can attend the event. Although the events usually take place at the end of the second semester in December, their schedules may vary depending on the department. The purpose of the event is to wrap up the year with department members enjoying a special dinner and building up a sense of belonging and intimacy in the department by socializing with each other. Although th

Last December, two letters about the Writing-Intensive (WI) classes were uploaded to the POSTECH Lounge and drew the attention of many students. The WI requirement has steadily caused a lot of problems such as unnecessary load on specific subjects, curriculum planning, and so forth. Recently, the WI class that opened this spring semester has markedly decreased and received complaints from students who must immediately satisfy the graduation requirements. The WI requirement was established as a required course for students entering after 2018 to improve their writing skills. In WI classes, writ

POSTECH’s representative science communication event that gained much attention, was held on Nov. 25. As it was held face-to-face for the first time in three years, many audiences participated in this event in order to see six presenters who were selected as the final contestants. The event is modeled after Fame Lab, a competition in which people concerned with the field of science speak about their research topics or other scientific issues within three minutes. Introducing My Research also stipulates that speakers should introduce their research without presentation material and use interest