About my ResearchMy research area is cognitive psychology. It examines how we think and process information, from receiving it to interpreting it and acting upon it. My area of interest is how people can focus on important information that aligns with their goals while ignoring irrelevant ones everywhere. This ability is especially critical given the overwhelming volume of information in our daily lives. Imagine you chat with a friend in a noisy place, you might need to concentrate on your friend while disregarding the background noise. You could have a conversation with your friend if the noi

Learning a new skill can be both challenging and rewarding. For me, learning to play the guitar was a journey that started in 2020. Inspired by my friends in a school band and the legendary guitarist Slash from Guns n' Roses, I embarked on a journey to learn the guitar with no formal lessons. It was tough at first, but with advice from my friends, I gradually learned the basic strumming skills.However, I soon realized that I wanted to do more than just strumming. I wanted to play solos like Slash. It was a challenging goal, and I almost gave up several times. No matter how much I tried, I

For those who have been following my opinion piece over the past couple of years will know of my slight dissatisfaction with my current mode of life. I feel as though I am not doing justice to my youth by spending it in lecture halls every day frantically jotting down notes as if the words might run away. Meanwhile, there is nothing I am doing to prevent my youth from running away. There is so much in the world to see, to experience, and to live. There are so many emotions to feel, and so many lives that could have been but did not. I have always wanted to be a writer, but I guess I found my p

Once in class, I asked a Postechian how much money it would take before he would allow someone to put a tattoo on his body. He was a person who did not currently have any tattoos and did not plan on getting one in the future. He said that he would only consider it for 100 million KRW, and other Postechians nodded in agreement. The conversation highlighted the reluctance of individuals to allow an indelible mark on their bodies against their wishes. Indeed, even a simple line drawn on one's back could be difficult to accept, as it would still be a permanent and unwanted alteration to one

Have you ever wondered if you are a follower or a pioneer in your lifestyle? Followers are people who tend to go along with the crowd. They are comfortable following the traditions and norms of their culture or society. They may be risk-averse and prefer to stick with what is known and familiar rather than trying something new. They often adopt lifestyles that are common or popular. Pioneers, on the other hand, are more likely to explore new lifestyle choices. They are curious and adventurous, and they enjoy trying new things. They may be more open to different ideas and perspectives, and they

I lived a very lazy life during summer vacation. I always played until past 4 A.M. and fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 2 P.M. During those three months, there were many goals to achieve, such as taking an English test, studying foreign languages, and getting a driver’s license, but nothing was achieved, and the second semester began.As winter vacation came back, I reflected on my life in the previous summer vacation. Unlike when I couldn’t achieve anything, I decided to wake up early and start the day and make time to do what I wanted to do. However, trying to get up early from the beginn

Introducing My ResearchI am majoring in financial economics. It studies how a financial deal is made, and how the specificity of financial trades, where general goods and services are distinguished, affects the efficiency of resource allocation. The most important function of financial markets is to promote the efficient allocation of funds and the attainment of added value by connecting creditors and debtors.I study policy designs that minimize the side effects of policy while preventing the financial crises that can occur due to uncertainties, so-called "information asymmetry," in which cred

Nowadays, being young in 2022, the public conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) was rekindled with the introduction of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. While natural language models are not a recent invention, the capabilities of ChatGPT surprised many. Notably, ChatGPT has passed US medical, law, and business school exams without any additional training; in The New York Times article conducting a “Turing test” of the AI, not even experts could distinguish between an AI-generated writing or a genuine human’s work with absolute certainty. But I am not writing this article

The 2022 Undergraduate Group Research Program (UGRP) was held From April 26, 2022, to Feb. 3, 2023. A team of three undergraduates or more study and research the fields they like for a year and have a chance to win an award. There are teams that develop an application or platform, teams that research AI models or blockchain, teams that make robots based on engineering skills, teams that do experiments regarding fundamental science, and teams that converge these fields. There are no limits. All POSTECH members including professors and graduates help undergraduates with their research. Undergrad

There is something undignifying about living in an apartment complex. I say this not to offend those who live in an apartment which, if looking around is not obvious enough, is a significant proportion of the Korean population including myself but purely out of my subjective impression from the experience of living in one. I feel as though I have become a cog in a machine, an ant living in a toy ant house, a caged chicken in a factory farm, an insignificant being in the grand scheme of the universe. This is not totally untrue, but being reminded of this fact every time I press the button from

After the second semester, I visited a nursing home nearby and spent a total of 64 hours over a 10 day period working two to eight hours every day. Before this voluntary service, (which I acknowledge that such voluntary services are meaningful and contributive to society), I thought it was kind of a waste of time and rewardless. So, it was my first time visiting this kind of facility, and the very reason I took part in it was not that I wanted to be of help to old people, but I simply needed some community service hours urgently.The nursing home consisted of three floors, and I spent most of m

From Jan. 3 to Jan. 8, the world’s largest electronic show, the Consumer Electronics Show 2023 (CES 2023), was held in Las Vegas. This year’s catchphrase for the CES 2023 was BE IN IT, and as the slogan goes, POSTECH was in it! Overall, 181 third year students participated in the CES 2023 as industry attendees, absorbing all of the innovative technology that CES 2023 had to offer. I was lucky enough to be one of the attendees who was given the chance to participate in the CES 2023. Before attending the CES 2023, my expectations of the trip to the United States were not that high, thinking it w

Like many of the people who are reading this article, my own academic specialisation is in dark matter. Yet unlike many of those who are reading this now, my dark matter is conceived in the pages of fictional texts – not in the world of physics.Gothic literature is a deeply misunderstood area of literary studies – it is often confused with either horror or science fiction. There are many areas in which the three overlap. However modern gothic scholars, such as David Punter and Glennis Byron, prefer to classify gothic literature as a mode rather than a genre. The main difference here is that th

As I took an evening stroll through Hongdae on my first day in South Korea, it was full of couples holding hands and wearing trendy, matching clothes. The place seemed alive. At that point, it was hard to imagine I was in the country with the fastest declining population in the world. But as I reached my university town Pohang, a city of half a million people located on the other side of the country, it painted a different picture altogether. Heading down to the markets and streets, you’re met with a sea of ajjuma (old ladies) and often there is not a young person to be seen. Of course, a vast

From my youth, I was a bookworm - I loved reading. My parents said that I tended to learn about the world through books. Up to my high school days, I thought everything I could ever learn was written somewhere in a book in the library. I was not the type for hands-on projects or doing experiments. In particular, I disliked the grunt work of measuring something over and over, just to get a ‘good’ result that agreed with already established laws and theories. Or worse, the experiment would infuriatingly yield the ‘wrong’ result, in which case I had to do the whole thing again.Perhaps what change

Please introduce yourselfHello, my name is Jung-in Youn, head of the Special Tax Treatment Division of the Tax and Customs Office, Ministry of Economy and Finance. I began my work as an officer at the International Finance Bureau, and worked through a variety of fields including national budget, policy, and tax, and returned to my current position at the Tax and Customs Office. I earned a doctorate in economics in the U.S. and worked for the Presidential Council on Nation Branding, where I wrote a book called “Korea Brand Power” that deals with national status. I also worked at the World Bank

Nowadays, being young means living for the future. Study to get into a good high school, work hard to get into university, do well in university to get a good job, the list goes on. Life is in constant motion forward, towards something. But what happens when we are forced to not think about the future?I used to comply perfectly with society's orientation on the future. I have always loved planning and had a strong sense of where I wanted to go. That is partly why I surprised myself by setting out for an exchange program to POSTECH. As many people know and the rest can guess, an exchange se

On Nov. 17, one of Korea’s biggest exams, the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), took place. Most students must go through it to enroll in the universities they want, and it involves keen competition for good grades. Many people had gone through this course, and the CSAT makes the headlines every year. As many as about 500,000 students took the CSAT this year, in just nine hours as well.These days, experts are increasingly criticizing this examination system. In addition, as participants decrease compared to over 800,000 students in earlier CSAT’s, grade evaluation systems have encountere

Introducing my ResearchOptics and condensed matter physics have been traditionally separated. My research is not confined to these two fields but is a new research field that has not existed before: combining both of them with nano-science technology. Specifically, it is to develop nano-scale spectral imaging technology that overcomes existing limitations. Using them, it is also to discover, analyze and control nano-optical properties newly emerging on a nano-scale when various matters including single-molecules, single-quantum light sources, and low-dimensional quantum matters contact with li

Resilience is one of human nature’s most highly praised qualities, and it is something that has been highlighted and honored in culture since the dawn of humanity. What is funny to notice is that as venerable a trait as it is, both on a microscopic and a macroscopic scale, it kind of lays dormant during times of euphoria and prosperity, and only awakens in times of turmoil and despair. Why? I just cannot help wondering if it is a biological quirk built inside each one of us or a behavioral flaw that we must fight to tame each day as an individual and as a society.I must have been eight years o