From June 14 to Sept. 3, Postechians are given a summer recess. During this time, Postechians participate in various activities. Some participate in internships to gain social experiences and experience office life before starting their careers. Some students conduct research in laboratories on campus to cultivate academic depth. Others prepare for achieving various certificates that they could not prepare for during the busy semester. POSTECH has a long summer recess of 82 days, so it is a good time for Postechians to either gain out-of-school experience or to rest and recharge. To find out how students plan to spend this summer recess, The Postech Times surveyed “Postechians’ 2021 summer recess Plans” from June 8 to June 13, 2021. Sixty-nine answers were collected.
The survey consisted of three questions about the summer recess: “What activities did you participate in during the 2020 Summer Recess?”, “What activities are you participating in during the 2021 summer recess?”, and “Do you have more activities or work to do this summer recess compared to the last summer recess?” Multiple responses were allowed for the first two questions to collect accurate answers.
Since 19 of the respondents were high school students in 2020, they responded they were studying and preparing for college entrance exams during the 2020 summer recess. These answers were categorized as etc. According to the survey, 25.5% of the students took a break during the 2020 summer recess. 10.6% of students participated in club/student activities and 9.8% did part-time jobs. 8.5% of students participated in research, 7.4% of students took summer session lectures, and 6.4% prepared for language and other certificates. The other 4.3% of students participated in internship programs.
The most popular activity planned for the 2021 summer recess was taking summer session lectures (19.6%). The number of students who replied to this category increased greatly compared to the prior year. It was followed by taking a break (18.3%) and doing part-time jobs (16.3%). Compared to last year, research participation (11.8%) and internship programs (5.2%) slightly increased. There was an outstanding increase in the preparation of language and other certificates (15.7%). Meanwhile, participation in club/student activities showed a slight decrease (7.8%). Some students responded that they are participating in the undergraduate research program, participating in mentoring volunteer work, or joining the army.
There was a big difference in the types of activities depending on the college year of students. Many freshmen and sophomores participated in preparing language and other certificates (29.6%) and part-time jobs (29.6%). However, juniors and seniors did not show great interest in the preparation of language and certificates (9.1%) and part-time jobs (15.2%). Instead, juniors and seniors showed a high participation rate in internships (15.2%), and research participation (33.3%) while not many freshmen and sophomores participated in internships (2.8%) and research participation (8.5%). However, both had high participation rates in summer session lectures (29.6% and 27.3%, respectively).
As this is the second summer recess after the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey also asked if students had more work to do or activities to participate in compared to the last summer recess. According to the survey, 63.8% of the students replied that they had more work and activities to do this summer recess, and 36.2% said they did not.