POSTECH is continuing its efforts to maintain the campus as a virus-free zone, and zero incidents of COVID-19 have been reported since March. Moreover, POSTECH has made excellent use of its infrastructure to provide quality online courses to Postechians and other students around the world. Here, The Postech Times has constructed a synopsis of the most recent and relevant events and survey results.
Efforts to Stop the Spread
Campus buildings are access controlled. Outsiders without an ID card are not granted entry. Thermal cameras are continuously monitoring facilities with high traffic. The disinfection of buildings is carried out at least once a week. Also, students must stay in isolation for 14 days, check temperatures, and complete a health questionnaire before entering the dormitories.
Changes in the Academic Calendar
Since the start of the first semester was delayed for one month, all other relevant schedules have been shifted accordingly.
Finals will be held between June 22 and 26; this may vary depending on the course. All freshmen courses will conduct finals offline on campus during this period. For courses that require an alternate form of assessment, such as laboratory or P.E. courses, professors will be allowed to make use of the focused supplementary class period from June 29 to July 27 to conduct those classes and/or exams on campus.
Summer recess will officially begin on June 29. Programs such as the SES (Summer Entrepreneurship Program) will also commence on this date. Summer sessions will be held from July 27 to Oct. 21.
Non-Face-to-Face/Online Classes
POSTECH has officially extended the online-only class period till the end of the semester and will only allow offline classes and final exams starting from June 22 through July 27, as previously stated. However, as everyone, including the faculty, is experiencing online classes for the first time ever, many Postechians have expressed mixed feelings about attending lectures far away from campus. The Postech Times has conducted a survey on the satisfactoriness and opinions on non-face-to-face/online courses until now and would like to share the results.
Out of 183 respondents, around 52.5% have responded that they are satisfied or extremely satisfied. 29% felt neutral, and 18.5% were dissatisfied. The dominant reason for satisfaction was “time efficiency due to no travel time between classes” which was selected by 77% of the respondents. Other answers such as “more comfortable and can focus better,” “can see the board better and hear the professor’s words more clearly,” and “no quality-wise difference from offline classes” all averaged between 10% and 25%. On the other hand, the two highest reasons for dissatisfaction were “less realistic, lacks delivery, and difficult to concentrate” and “impossible to interact and study with others,” which scored 48.6% and 51.4% respectively. Other reasons included “excessive amount of assignments,” “TA tutoring sessions not conducted properly,” and “lack of movement and degraded health.” These scored between 10% and 20%.
The survey also queried about the two most popular online media used by professors and students: ZOOM and POSTECHx. In both cases, more than 75% of the respondents felt above neutral, with around 45% satisfied or extremely satisfied.
