Yesterday was a packed day consisting of many tours to see what Yonsei University has to offer. Yonsei is one of the top universities in South Korea and in the world. It is so competitive that students need to get a perfect on the college entrance exam to even have a chance of being admitted. On the outside, the campus felt similar to Pitt, but on the inside, the facilities seemed more up-to-date. For example, every lab station had a 25-inch monitor that the students could use. Additionally, there were screens all over the place displaying a wide variety of things. During this tour, we also received many gifts. We received a gift bag and food at every room we stopped at. Finally, we also ate on-campus food, which I thought was much better than Pitt food.

After the university tour, we were able to tour Professor Cheong’s lab. Her lab was high-tech and had many expensive equipment. They were studying mouse brains, so we were able to see mouse brain and its microscopic view. The most interesting thing about that lab was that they implanted a hat-shaped knob onto the mouse’s skulls so that they could keep them still while working and studying them. The final tour we had at Yonsei was at a start-up called cellArtgen. They were working to use stem cells to regrow and repair damaged organs. This company seemed like it was straight out of a science fiction novel because I never knew that stem cell studies have gotten as far as they are.

The final thing I did was walk through Hongdae Street which is famous for its food, and street performances. It was a nice cool down to the day filled with activity. I got a cheese pork cutlet and went back to the hotel to get ready for the early day at the DMZ tomorrow.