Assortment of Participants & Media
Assortment of Participants & Media
  • Reporter Chung Yu-sun
  • 승인 2013.11.06 14:38
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On Oct. 25, The 2nd POSTECH Cultural Content Contest in Science and Technology, hosted by The Postech Times, finally came to an end with its award ceremony. Last year, when the first contest was held, a total of 12 teams submitted their works. Among 12 teams, 3 were international students. This year, the number of participants slightly increased to a total of 16 students. Among the 16 teams, there were 4 international students who participated. In general, an increase of interest for the Cultural Content Contest in Science and Technology can be examined.    Compared to the majority of contests held by POSTECH, which are mostly advertised and conducted in Korean, this contest was different in that it had a larger range of acceptance including international students as well as both graduate and undergraduate students.
When we asked international students how they came to know about this contest, most replied that they saw the advertisement that came through the e-mail. However, Amir Masoud Dayaghi (MSE M.S.-Ph.D. integrated) mentioned how “a lot of my friends did not know about the contest” and that the contest should be “better adv- ertised.”
We examined how the event was advertised. Two e-mails were sent after Jun. 11, three announcements were posted on the official school bulletin board, and two notices were posted on the PosB bulletin board. From the international students’ perspective, because the titles of the online advertisement are done in Korean first, the English part of the title is cut off unless the notices are clicked. International students, who are neither familiar with Korean nor the POSTECH Vision Information System (POVIS), tend to become skeptical with opening the notices that seem to have Korean titles. A more effective means of advertisement for the international students is needed. One method may be placing a poster about the contest on the DICE bulletin board.
When asking the international students how they came to participate in this contest, most replied that they wanted to get involved with POSTECH, and also for the experience. Among the participants, Angele Koh (LIFE M.S.-Ph.D. integrated) was an award winner for both the first and second contest. While her piece last year was a photostory, this year, she was awarded with the runner-up prize for her UCC. She claims she wanted to challenge herself by using a different media and topic. Angele commented how “compared to last year, there were more creative works.”
After the ceremony, some international students asked for an additional judge, who is a foreigner. The students who attended the awards ceremony mentioned that they felt the judges sided towards the Korean students. Since the judges are professors who have certain specialization in these areas, it is hard to imply that the judgment was unfair. However, to incorporate different perspectives, and a stance of equality, recruiting a foreign judge may not be a bad idea. Another suggested improvement was to give out certificates of participation.
As this was only the second contest, there is still room for improvement, but a lot of progress was made since the contest last year.