So it turns out I left Pitt just to end up at another research institution. POSTECH, Pohang University of Science and Technology, is a university based out of Pohang, South Korea. We started the day with a presentation from the admissions team. I learned that POSTECH is only about 40 years old, but it has already become one of the top research universities in South Korea.

After the presentation, we were given a tour of multiple labs. In one of them, we even got to see a few quantum computers, which was really cool because I had never seen anything like that before. We also saw a lab that dealt with sound and waves, as well as a lab focused on integrating antennas into materials like glass. It was interesting to see how much advanced research was happening there, especially because a lot of it connected back to engineering and technology in ways I had not really thought about before.

We had lunch in their esports coliseum. I had a delicious pork shoulder fajita. If you thought what happened before lunch was cool, then you will think what happened after is amazing. We got to tour a synchrotron radiation accelerator. There are not many of these in the world. They help researchers study a multitude of different things, from chemistry to drug making to robotics. During the tour of this facility, we were pointed to a station that she claimed was the birthplace of the first COVID treatment. This facility was in the shape of a circle. The next facility we went to was a 4th-generation linear X-ray free-electron laser. This allows them to do advanced imaging, spectroscopy, and crystallography. It is really cool to be in a place that is responsible for so much innovation.