Looking back at my time here at POSTECH, my extracurricular life could be boiled down to two names: ADLIB, the theater club,  and G-POS, the game development club.

As a high school student I was seriously introverted to the point of feeling queasy just at the thought of standing in front of an audience. While I was afraid of it, I grew a sense of respect and adoration for those brave enough to dare to step onto the stage. On the other hand, game development has always been a hobby and passion of mine.

During the semester, I was an actor with ADLIB. During the breaks, a developer at G-POS. It was exhausting, exhilarating, and unforgiving in equal measures. Balancing coursework with rehearsals meant that rehearsals only started at 9 P.M. when the freshmen quizzes for physics and calculus courses ended. After hours of rehearsal, I would drag myself to tackle assignments with blurry eyes, often staying up all night. On bad days I mixed up lines I practiced hundreds of times, my movements felt stiff, my voice cracked, and every piece of criticism cut a little deeper than it should have. There were nights when I asked myself why I was pushing myself through too hard.

But, as I found out recently, pain has a way of dissolving under the spotlight. I had the honour of opening a play this semester during the annual ADLIB performance. When I spoke the first line, the audience went silent and the world sharpened. My lines felt both too long and too short simultaneously, and I felt rewarded for every sleepless night, if only for just a moment. That brief surge of certainty kept me returning no matter how many times doubt tried to push me away.

2025 marked another shift when, freshly re-enrolled, I suddenly found myself as club president of G-POS. The role was unfamiliar, the faces newer still, and responsibility weighed heavier than I expected. But if I were to guide others through something I loved, I wanted to do it without regret. We held technical seminars on Unity, Git, and C#, then spent five intense weeks of summer building games from scratch with other passionate members. Our team earned support from KRAFTON, opening doors to developers and clubs beyond campus. Overall, I felt rewarded immensely for my efforts when my friends

Responsibility is the other side of passion. Time must be split wisely between classes, health, extracurricular activities, and you must not let your team down. Whether you are skilled or not does not matter; what matters is your commitment to your passion and your dedication to the team. It is true that commitment is a heavy load on your shoulders and that cutting sleep hours to realize your passion is a herculean task. But this struggle—this willingness to pour everything into something uncertain—is a privilege that only a university student may experience.

I would like to remind you that, while it may sound cliché, now is the time to take the step and make the jump. Now is possibly the best time in your life to be passionate, to experience hardship, and to feel responsible.

So if you encounter an opportunity that scares you a little, step toward it anyway. University offers only a short window to recklessly commit to what you love. I chose the stage and the screen, and through both, I learned that growth lives at the edge of discomfort—not despite the chaos, but because of it.