Starting from the class of 2011, POSTECH will have a massive change in the school’s whole degree structure with the concept of ‘POSTECH College.’ This shift will be sensational in that POSTECH will pave the way for the undergrad system that is based upon the premise that all Bachelor’s degree candidates are already to aim for the doctoral degree. With the new doctorate-oriented college system, POSTECH will not offer the Master’s degree program with the loss of its meaning.

Before the change, students used to be required to take the foundational courses in the freshman year only. With the new system, in the name of ‘POSTECH College,’ students will be required to take these courses for the first two years.

Regardless of their majors, all students are to build strong foundations on the diverse fields of science for the developed insight to understand the major courses more profoundly, and the enhanced capability of interdisciplinary application. At the beginning of the third year, students choose their advisory professors and begin to concentrate on each major coordinated with the graduate school. This is what shortens the years for seeking for the Master’s degree. The completion of the doctorate will require seven years, where it took nine years in average before.

What is special about the two years of ‘POSTECH College’ is that the non-academic programs will be required and counted as official credits for graduation in name of Extra-Curricular Units.

For students who do not plan to go to a graduate school, whether they would work for corporations or begin their own businesses, an extra year of Executive Master Program coordinated with the undergrad school will be offered to give a Master’s degree in the Management of Technology.

About the background of the new policy, President Sunggi Baik said, “The undergraduate-oriented education has a limit to creating scientists who would challenge for the Nobel Prize or be creative entrepreneurs like Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google.” Then he added, “To create global science leaders, a systematic elite education planned for the completion of the doctorate from the freshman year is necessary.”

The transformation of POSTECH’s education system may impose great influence on Korea’s undergraduate-oriented higher education system.