I think I can give you two reasons. First, it was the financial reason. At the end of my first year, I realized that the purpose of getting master's and doctorate degrees was to make more money. I compared the money and time spent to obtain degrees, the difference and probability of an increase in salary after obtaining a degree, and I decided to get a job. Second, I realized the difficulty of research. I strongly felt that students who are good at studying in college and those who are good at research are different. They are different in ability, but also in attitude. I felt that I couldn't devote enough effort to explore an unknown field to be worthy of the Ph.D. title because academic study was strictly instrumental for me.

I got my job through an offer made to me by my company's HR team to become an industry-academy scholarship student when I was the representative of my concentration. I am still working for that company, but I think I was lucky to get a job, so I hope you take this as my personal experience. GIST is a school with a small number of students, which enabled me to enjoy working in various organizations. That experience helped me write a good cover letter. I was a part of the student council in the first and second years and the representative of my concentration in the third and fourth years, which helped me learn how organizations work. As a result, I could examine my responsibility, morality, and legitimacy. If I was at an ordinary university with many students, it would have been difficult to be in those positions solely on individual will. Another advantage was that there were various programs you can choose compared to small number of students. The programs I participated in were so diverse, including overseas credit exchange program, startup support, lab internship, and thesis registration. Compared to other universities, I could challenge many things with relatively low competition and low cost, and it became a great advantage.

It would help to imagine clearly and concretely about the future that will unfold after choosing a job. It would also help to rank the values you consider important in life and imagine consequences that would follow when pursuing those values. For example, do you want to be recognized as a special person instead of working machine at work? Or would you like to use your holidays or annual leave freely? Instead of thinking that you want both blindly, prioritize the values you want and choose an organization with a culture that suits them. GIST students start preparing for employment much later than the students in other universities and have less accessibility, but they can make up for their weaknesses by accumulating knowledge in their major field up to the level similar to that of ordinary university students who devoted themselves to finding a job or by gaining unique experiences that can be easily acquired at GIST. It is a very cold season. It’s not your fault when you fail, and do not take it for granted even when you find a job. Manage your self-esteem and keep on trying.

I will briefly introduce my field research. It can be summarized as the research on bones and joints and research on the mechanisms of cancer metastasis. During my master's and doctorate program at GIST Graduate School, I was part of the research team led by Professor Jang-Soo Chun, who was my advisor, that carried out research on the mechanism of chondrocyte degeneration, the only cell that makes up joints. Later, for my post-doc research, I started a new study on blood cancer called multiple myeloma at Dr. Roger N. Pears' lab. After I returned to Korea, I have been studying the metastasis mechanisms for colon and breast cancer. I spent a long time as a research professor, and it was a good opportunity to experience various fields. Looking back, it was an interesting journey where I could study the function of cytoskeletal proteins in the process of cancer metastasis, the effect of tissue stiffness on cell differentiation, and the process of discovering new functions by discovering proteins with no known function at all.

In the case of my friends, they got a job at a pharmaceutical company or research institute or went to a medical, dental, or pharmaceutical colleges, or went to a different field after graduating from the graduate school majoring in life sciences. Surely there were various career paths. The strange thing is, no matter how many times I search my memory, I have never thought about a different path. When choosing a department when entering the university, I chose the Department of Genetic Engineering by following the advice of my parents, and I naturally thought I have to obtain a master’s and doctoral degree in graduate school, do the post-doc research, and become a professor. I never thought of a different path. Come to think of it, I ask myself ‘Why did I do that?’ and it makes me smile. I always advise my dear juniors and students to consider and prepare for various possibilities while I hadn’t. I want to tell my students that someone else’s life is not a mirror for you to follow as it is but rather is a mirror that allows you to look back, change, and grow yourself through the reflection of that person's mirror. The decision is yours to make.

All of our students who came to GIST through the long and difficult competition for entrance examinations have been recognized for their ability. I ask them to go forward with confidence. Not everyone is good at all academic disciplines. When you advance to a college, you choose your area of specialty and narrow your path to the future. As a result, there will be a lot of thought in choosing a major, and there are actually quite a few students who receive counseling on career issues. They are lost between the field they want to pursue and the hot areas that seem to lead to a more secure future. While I lectured in the field of life science in the Division of liberal Arts and Sciences, I sometimes deal with contents that are related to the fields of medicine, pharmacy, and medical engineering, including physics, chemistry, and even fields that combine AI and 3D printing technology, which are the topics of the 4th Industrial Revolution these days. I think that integrated academic fields will bloom in the future. In other words, it could be great to plan the future having curiosity and interest in various fields. Also, I hope you do not to compare yourself with someone who looks better than you but move forward with the confidence that you can do sufficiently well in the bottom of your heart.

I want to run a blog or write a book on the field of life sciences that gives easy explanations for elementary, middle, high school and the general public in addition to GIST students to understand the subject, that is, by using some special items to explain the principles of life science in a perspective different from other people's perspectives. I want to change people’s view on the field of life sciences, which is regarded as a subject to memorize recklessly, to realize that it is a field that can be applied more broadly. For that, I am also studying various fields to do that.

INT-FLOW Co., Ltd. is a technology-based start-up founded on August 1, 2019, and has the identity as a 'company specializing in analyzing animal biometric information' that uses internet of things technology to analyze the biometric information of people or animals without contact. Currently, we are developing an 'Edge Farm' solution that helps pig farms and cattle farms to forecast diseases and analyze productivity and 'Face Inspection,' which is a quarantine system that determines whether pedestrians are wearing masks and measures their body temperatures within the range of maximum 5m.

I became interested in starting a business while participating in special lectures on start-ups and start-up club activities that I discovered by chance while attending the doctoral course at GIST Graduate School. In fact, I had a steady interest in it even during my degree course when I started a private business and participated in various competitions, but it was actually very difficult to run a business while studying for the doctoral degree. Eventually, I closed down the private business during the degree course, and I began to prepare for a business in earnest from July 19, when it was basically confirmed that I will graduate with a doctoral degree.

The ability to solve problems and conduct research is a valuable asset throughout my life that I would never have been able to acquire if it was not for GIST's master's and doctorate programs. These skills are quite essential for technology development after commencing a business and I have made the best use of them. In addition to the degree courses, GIST's passionate start-up training and mentoring courses helped me to understand the startup ecosystem and develop a network of helpers even before starting up.

This year, we will focus on the development and demonstration of the source technology that will demonstrate the possibility of 'non-contact biometric information analysis' that we put forward. In 2021, we will sell our services through distribution channels for Edge Farm and Face Detection, receive feedbacks from customers, and gain exclusive status for related technologies. Our goal is to promote an IPO or a meaningful M&A by developing into a company that is recognized for AI source technology within five years.