I was thinking about majoring in physics when I was in high school, but I think I had a change of heart because AI is hot nowadays and they say it’s easier to get a job majoring in this. I took general physics and computer programming in the first semester of the first year, and computer programming was more exciting than physics. I hesitated a little before choosing this concentration because I have never coded before GIST, but I made up my mind after getting good grades at the end of the semester.

It’s late but I would like to congratulate Da-hyeon Kim, who is my senior, for the award. There are so many hard working people around me including my peers and seniors like Da-hyeon Kim. When I see them concentrating on their area of interest, they are so into it with an intensity that was unnerving. They are undergraduates, but they are already contacting labs, which is quite early. They exchange with their seniors in the graduate school in the lab and seek for advice from professors, making their dreams come true in the research scene. Da-hyeon Kim is one of them to my knowledge. There aren’t many colleges where undergraduates can knock on the lab doors while they are juniors. This environment, where juniors can exchange with seniors and seek advice from professors, is the unique advantages of GIST. Each and every student is working hard and that enables the communication with the labs.

I hope they are the ones who love and are good at math and physics, because those are the basic competences they need in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Concentration. Also, I think it’s very important that they have trust in themselves and believe that they can do anything when they make efforts, because things change so rapidly in this field and there are so many places where we can obtain related knowledge from these days. That makes it much all the more important to have the attitude of looking for answers to things that we don’t know and continue to search as we study. I also try to study with that attitude.

The course that I remember the most was that I took in the second semester in the first year. That helped me to engage in learning in a new attitude, instead of continuing what I had been used to. The course was about proposing ideas for making artificial organs. At first, like I always had done, I looked at the ideas that were proposed in the past, understood them, and gave presentations. I did not get a good grade. I began to propose bold but new ideas, improved them, and break it apart to see it as specific topics. I received good grades after that. They say Googling is very important in the computer area, and I learned how to use Google through this course, how to obtain knowledge through it, and how to build up my own capabilities. Also, it also gave me a chance to think about how I should engage in studying.

The biggest strength I felt when I was in GIST was the ‘people.’ There are so many great senior students who share the difficulties they had and their knowhows about overcoming them for their juniors. Professors also help their students a lot. There once was a time when I had trouble with my study. I talked to my professor about it and the professor encouraged me with a lot of good advice. That became a great help. Also, I have to say you will have friends and peers that are working with you and you would feel thankful even when you don’t say it. You feel stronger sense of unity because there aren’t many of us. You also tend to cheer each other up all the time. For that, I think ‘people’ are the strength of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Concentration of GIST.

I took a lot of humanities and liberal arts courses at GIST. I had many chances to think while attending ethics, legal philosophy, science philosophy, knowledge sociology, and history. The bottom line is happiness. I want to be happy and I want others around me to be happy. I want to be someone who challenges even difficult things, believing that I can do it, instead of giving it up. I don’t know exactly whom I want to be, but I am satisfied with myself thinking and making efforts about it every day.

A realistic piece of advice is that they don’t have to worry too much because it’s very easy to switch your concentration at GIST. The subjects you learn in the second year would definitely help you even when you choose another concentration later. They are, for example, algorithm, data structure, object-oriented language, and circuitry. Also, as you might already have noticed during the interview, a very ordinary person with mediocre skills like me is doing all right at GIST so you won’t have much trouble getting used to the school. Currently, we can’t go to the lecture room for the class because of COVID-19. The situation is bad, but we attend online lectures and meetings and do epidemiological investigations with the help of the digital system. What if we didn’t have these technologies, then? It wouldn’t take a second to feel thankful that we have these technologies now. Also, you would feel proud on the one hand, thinking that Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Concentration is contributing to all these hardware and software developments. I hope many people choose this proud concentration without hesitation and take part in creating better technologies.