Day 8:
Today we visited POSTECH, which stands for Pohang University of Science and Technology. POSTECH is one of Korea’s top science and engineering universities and is especially known for its research and technology programs. Honestly, the campus itself already felt very advanced and futuristic compared to a lot of universities I’ve seen.
The first thing we did was meet with the EE department head, who told us all about POSTECH and what the university has to offer. I thought it was really cool how many resources POSTECH gives its students, especially things like stipends and opportunities to study abroad. We even met a POSTECH graduate student who studied abroad at Pitt a few months ago and plans on coming back soon, which was really cool to hear about. We also met a POSTECH student who will actually be joining us at Pitt this fall to study abroad, and I ended up chatting with her more later during lunch.
After meeting with the EE department head, we toured the computer science building. From there, we headed to lunch at their sports colosseum. The food was amazing. I had tteokbokki and kimchi pancakes, and during lunch I got to talk more with the future Pitt study abroad student. She was so sweet, and I’m honestly excited to show her around Pitt when she gets there in the fall. My favorite part of lunch though was that they had K-pop playing on a giant screen in the colosseum, and I got to talk with the POSTECH students about their favorite idols and groups.
After lunch, we visited the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, also known as PAL. PAL is a huge research facility connected to POSTECH that uses particle accelerators and powerful X-ray technology for scientific research. It honestly felt like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Seeing all of the technology and learning how researchers use the facility to study materials, medicine, and physics on such a massive scale was really fascinating.
After that, we headed back to the hotel, and for dinner we got Korean pizza. It tasted sooo good, and surprisingly they put corn on basically every kind of pizza here. After dinner, we took a walk on the beach, grabbed dessert, and ended our day there.
