To begin with, I am very excited to deliver “my” first story, not just an article. The topic that I will handle is my ‘Chemistory’, which is a compound word for Chemistry and story. It is also the title of magazine published by department of Chemistry. There are two reasons that I want to introduce my story.
One of the reasons is because this article will be published in the last newspaper of 2015, so I want to say something meaningful. And the other reason appeared after I saw prospective freshmen taking their entrance interviews in these days, which brought back memories about my admission interview last year. So I will mention about my entrance interview in POSTECH.
This is about Chemistry, the subject that I chose for the rest of my life, which decided my current status, and that I am now dreaming about for the future.
In my entrance interview in the last year, problems were pretty hard and I was frustrated. During the interview, several questions from professors and answers from me were passing messily. Suddenly, a professor asked me, “What is your dream?” I was confident because that was a question that I had anticipated and thought about the day before. I answered my prepared answer briefly. I said my dream is to become a professor. He responded by asking, “How many universities exist in Korea?” He continued, “There are more than 100 universities in Korea and at least 10 Chemistry professors in each university. Are you really dreaming of becoming one of those thousand people in the world?” I lost my tongue. The professor said, “POSTECH incubates Messi of Chemistry. You got it?”
I was deeply impressed by the expression, the “Messi of Chemistry”. It has been a motto of my life since I took the interview, and Professor Mahn-Joo Kim (CHEM), who instilled this vision in me, is now my advisor. I am still just a freshman. I know I will suffer a lot of adversities throughout my life in and outside of POSTECH. But I am glad to face them because I am dreaming of becoming the Messi of Chemistry.
I commonly see students who are worrying about their future and regret choosing their major or even POSTECH. I want to encourage them, “Please remember when you interviewed to enter POSTECH and the period you spent preparing for that. You tried a lot and you really wanted to come to POSTECH!”
Of course, the story above is not just “my” story. Postechians, dare I say we all, deserve to be a “Messi”. Have pride in yourself and in our school, POSTECH.