In the last issue of The Postech Times, I read an article about the difficulties of students who return to POSTECH. From the viewpoint of the man who is waiting to volunteer for military service, the article was so realistic and caught good points. However, the article left something to be desired. It would have been better off if it used not only the contents of the interviews, but specific information such as research materials that can support the article.
Including myself, there are some students who are taking a leave of absence from school or planning to do so. Like the reasons mentioned in the article, students seriously worry about the burden of feeling alone, surrounded by younger students. Furthermore, stress from the feeling that they do not have enough time to prepare their career after graduation is a serious issue.
When I asked the friendly senior colleague who came back to POSTECH last year, he said “unlike other universities, it is too hard to adapt to new surroundings in POSTECH”. After hearing his statement, I was curious why this problem is so critical to re-Postechians.
After considering this question, I concluded that there are several problems in POSTECH. First, the sense of alienation is derived from the members of classes. Except for a few students who take a semester off, most students whose majors are the same, take the same classes at the same time. They are connected very closely, so it is not easy for re-Postechians to get along with other students. According to another re-Postechain, he felt all alone more in major subjects than in humanities classes.
Second, there is the feeling of pressure derived from class structure. Many classes are scheduled as a one-year course. For example, if one student applies for a leave of absence for one semester, he might face the problem that he can not register for some courses because of he has not taken the prerequisite courses.
Students who go to military service may forget lots of information related to their major. They have the right of choice to study more in graduate school or to find employment. But they have an academic disconnection for about 2 years, so it might not be easy to make the right decision.
But the most important factor to affect re-Postechians is other students’ attention. Enrolled students can get indirect experience from re-Postechians. It is the win-win strategy to have a good relationship between enrolled students and re-Postechians. A little interest toward re-Postechians could be a large support. From now on, how about simply saying hello to re-Postechians to help them easily adapt to POSTECH?