On Tuesday, we started exactly where we ended the day before: on POSTECH’s campus. We were given a tour by a student named James. He was born in Korea but lived in England for a few years, which is why I was really thrown off when I heard his British accent. He showed us all that POSTECH has to offer its students. We saw the library, which has a nap room and a game room. While I was in there, James offered me a drink I had never seen before: milk soda. It tasted really good and did not taste like milk at all. We also saw the cafeteria, which I learned was only $1 to access. This is much different from the exorbitant rate of $17 that Pitt charges to access one of their dining halls. The food there is also pretty good. POSTECH is similar to Pitt in the sense that they have restaurants on campus, like Burger King.
After we were done at POSTECH, we made our way over to POSCO, the company that helped start POSTECH in the 1980s. We started by touring their main museum, where we learned about how steel is produced and what it is used for. They had a few interactive exhibits that helped us visualize the process. They also had examples of where their steel is used and showed us how they use 3D ink technology to achieve almost any finish.
From that museum, we went to another one that was all about POSCO’s history and their goal of helping Korea become a major steel manufacturer and exporter. This was especially important because Korea was still rebuilding after the war, and developing a strong steel industry was seen as a way to strengthen the economy. The museum showed how POSCO grew from an ambitious idea into one of the most important companies in Korea. It was interesting to see how much of their history was connected to Korea’s overall growth and industrial development. It made me realize that POSCO was not just producing steel, but also helping build the foundation for many other industries in the country.
We finally got to tour the actual steel mill. We did most of the tour from our bus because of how massive the facility is, but for one part, we got to go inside and see sheets of steel being rolled. It was absolutely incredible to watch. There is so much power behind the machines that can do that kind of work, and seeing it happen in person made the process feel much more real. When the steel rolled past us, we could feel extreme heat radiating from it, which showed just how intense the environment inside the mill is. It was one of the coolest parts of the day because we were able to see the steel-making process go from something we learned about in a museum to something happening right in front of us.