Today, we had the opportunity to tour Yonsei University, one of the top universities in Korea. Yonsei University has a beautiful campus located in Sinchon. We traveled using the Seoul Metro to the campus and met up with Professor Lee, an electrical engineer who had previously worked in the United States. We started by taking a tour of the campus and viewing various historical sites. Yonsei University originated from a medical hospital called Gwanghyewon which was established by Dr. Horace N. Allen, an American medical missionary. Before the school opened, another medical missionary named Dr. Horace G. Underwood supported the founding efforts by providing his various expertise. Gwanghyewon medical school was renamed to Severance Medical School, and Dr. Underwood’s educational system Underwood School was renamed to Yonhi College. These two institutions merged to form the modern day Yonsei University. As we walked to see the historical sites on campus, I thought about the historical impacts which led to the University’s current standings.
Following our campus tour of university, we went on walking tours of the Business and Engineering schools. Both buildings were expansive and were filled with comfortable seating options, classrooms with technology integration, and cafes for students to enjoy coffee during the school day. As we walked through the halls of the Engineering building, I couldn’t help but compare it to Benedum Hall at the University of Pittsburgh. Both engineering buildings contained labs for students to gain hands-on experience in the various disciplines of engineering, but Yonsei’s resources were especially vast.
We ended our time at Yonsei by touring two biomedical research facilities. The first facility was a research lab which sponsored both undergraduate and graduate students and studied various psychological impacts relating to sleep and cognition on mice. The students explained to us the various experiments which were performed on the mice to assess changes in factors including REM sleep cycles and the ability for the mice to regain homeostasis. The second facility was a startup company which was composed of graduate level students and researchers. The startup company, CellArtgen, primarily focused on growing organoids using bio-materials to assist in the treatment of rare diseases. We toured two CellArtgen lab sites as well as the company offices.
Our time at Yonsei University was an extremely memorable experience. It was such an honor to be led by some of the most esteemed professors and students in Korea.