Undergraduates of POSTECH pay a certain amount to Student Association. The Materials Science and Engineering sutdents pay when they are freshmen,and the others pay when they reach certain semester. The amount of money collected differs from department to department. However, there is something common among all; payments are mandatory to become qualified for full membership.
The average amount of money collected is approximately 200,000 KRW. This is not a small amount at all, but most students just pay without asking what it is for. Therefore, from the idea that this could actually be a serious matter, The Postech Times has decided to check whether these actions could be justified by interviewing the student representative of Industrial & Management Engineering (IME), who asked for an anonymous interview.
The Detailed Regulations of IME shows that members with full membership are obliged to make necessary payments when reaching their third semester.
Some might raise questions regarding why such payments are needed from students when they should rather be supported from the departments. The representative responded by saying that the department cannot fully focus its fund for undergraduate students. Since they have to spare limited amount to undergraduates and graduates, it is inevitable for students to pay the remaining amount.
The money collected per member in IME was 200,000 KRW this year. The money mostly goes into preparing events, such as welcoming parties for freshmen, expenses for trips such as Membership Trainings (MT), maintaining the departments’ printer, etc. There are students uncomfortable with having to pay this large amount of money at once. From the representative’s point of view, it is much easier to collect eight semester’s worth at once.
However, not everyone participates in the previously mentioned events. There are students who only participate in half of the events. Some do not use the printers, or not participate at all, meaning they have nothing to benefit from the payments they make. These students complain about the payments being mandatory. Therefore, if they want to keep their rights as a full member, they have no choice but to pay.
Students who do not make the payments are degraded to associate members because they broke the regulation. This is one of the biggest causes of discontent. Students who do not participate in events feel unfair having to pay just to keep their right as a voter. Through this interview, the representative of IME felt the controversy in this and acknowledged that changes should be made.
The interview was only held with the IME representative. Therefore, The Postech Times has checked the regulations of each department to check the status quo and found out the situation was no different than IME in other departments as well.