The main ceremony starts at 2:00 PM, upon the arrival of the academic procession starting at 1:40 PM. The ceremony features a report on academic affairs, greetings from distinguished guest speakers, conferral of degrees and the award ceremony. After POSTECH President Sunggi Baik gives an opening address, the graduates will receive their commencement address from chairman Lee Gu-Taek. Tae-Joon Park, the founding chairman, Gong Won-sick, the vice governor for political affairs of Gyeongsangbuk-do Province and Park Seung-ho, the mayor of Pohang will deliver congratulatory speeches.
The 21st POSTECH Commencement marks the award of 327 bachelor’s degrees, 222 master’s degrees and 185 doctoral degrees. The honor of valedictorian award of undergraduates goes to Han Ji-yeon (Department of Chemistry, 06). She attained an outstanding G.P.A. of 4.19 (out of 4.3), which is not enough to break the record G.P.A. set by the past valedictorian of 4.21.
This year the university turns out two students graduating in six semesters and 11 students in seven semesters. Twenty five receive dual bachelor’s degrees and nine students graduate with minor degrees, which is an increase in number from last year. Among international students, there are 16 graduate students from the graduate schools, including GIFT and PIRL/GSIT.
Graduates Jang Dong-jin (doctorate in Physics) and Lee Yong-seob (doctorate in Electrical Engineering) who wins the ‘Sung-Kee Chung Thesis Paper Award’ for the natural science field and ‘Chang Kun Soo Thesis Paper Award’ for the engineering field, respectively, in recognition of their excellent thesis papers. These awards were established by POSTECH Emeritus Professor Chang Kun Soo from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor Sung-Kee Chung from the Department of Chemistry.
The titles of award winning papers are as follows: ‘Collapse of the Peak Effect due to ac-Induced Flux Creep in an Isotropic Vortex System of MgCNi3 Single Crystals’ and ‘A high-efficiency class-E GaN HEMT power amplifier for WCDMA applications.’ Jang published his paper in Physical Review Letters, one of the prestigious journals in the field of physics.
The Mueunjae award for a student who uplifted the university’s reputation and contributed to its development goes to Choi Mi-ri (Department of Materials Science Engineering, 05). She served as the president of the undergraduate association in 2008.
