From Sep.27-28, the POSTECH & KAIST Science War was held in KAIST in Daejeon. There were many competitors and supporters. Supporters are students who cheer for their university team and meet to interact with each other. Although foreign exchange students have always been welcome to participate in this event as supporters, it is questionable whether they were aware of this opportunity before this year.
In this year’s Science War, many international students participated as supporters. Before the event took place, Nathan (POSTECH, Brazil) was aware of the event and planned to visit KAIST. He commented, “The Science War between POSTECH and KAIST is very meaningful because students from both of Korea’s top science technology universities can show their abilities through competitions and interact with each other.” According to Nathan, there are also silmilar sports competitions between universities in Brazil. When asked his opinion about interaction programs with other universities’ international students, Nathan commented, “If there is a chance to interact with KAIST’s international students, of course I will get the chance.”
Many international students in POSTECH were interested in participating in the sports games or the science quiz, but they were limited to joining as supporters. The recruitment for supporters was not in English so many foreigners did not know about it. Moreover, the schedule for the bus and competition was not informed to foreign supporters so there were only a few foreign supporters who knew that they would be provided with meals and a place to stay overnight once they arrived at KAIST. A few international exchange students were surprised to hear such offers.
After actually participating in the Science War, the exchange students’ perspective somewhat changed. Clai souza (POSTECH, Brazil), mentioned how the competition was a little different from his expectation:“I was impressed that students from POSTECH and KAIST were hanging around with good manners rather than treating each other aggressively.”
There were also KAIST foreign students in the stadium, but they were smaller in number. Camila Paiva (KAIST, Brazil) claimed. “There is so little advertisement about this Science War in KAIST that it is too difficult for us to be aware about this festival.” She only got the information about the Science War from her Brazilian friend, who is a POSTECH foreign supporter. She was very sorry for the lack of interaction program between Korean and foreign students in the Science War and commented that she hopes there will be more in the future.
Although there are more foreign students in KAIST than in POSTECH, the POSTECH foreign supporters outnumbered those of KAIST. Several KAIST foreign students also commented it is not often that foreign students join activities in the university and it is a shame that many students did not attend the festival. In contrast, POSTECH foreign students outnumbered KAIST students even though they have to travel three hours by bus to cheer POSTECH players in the competition.