On May 17, the Ministry of National De-fense (MND) announced its a plan for abol-ishing the system for alternative military service until 2023. The reason for this an-nouncement is to solve insufficient military service resources problem. The MND stated that the current number of men aged 20 is

approximately 350,000, but will decrease to 250,000 by 2023. This could create a deficit of 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers.

According to its plan, the number of people assigned in skilled industrial personnel will be 6,000 in 2018, reduced to 3,000 in 2020 and removed completely in 2023. Also, the

system for technical research personnel who has master’s or doctor’s degree will reduce the number of people to 2,000 by 2020, 1,500 by 2021, 500 by 2022 and remove completely by 2023.

Since 1973, the alternative military service has been in effect to foster talented people in science and industrial circles. Domestic research institutes, universities, and venture companies have conducted research with considerably talented people without disrupt-ing their career.

The MND is heavily criticized by many science and engineering institutes because this plan could weaken scientific and tech-nologic competitiveness, create a manpower shortage in medium and small companies, and lead to other problems.

According to a survey conducted from Ko-rea Industrial Technology Promotion Asso-ciation, 90.4% among 317 medium and small

companies are opposed to the MND’s plan. Among these companies, 13.7% even replied that this alternative system should increase its number of people assigned. Many question whether this plan can solve military resources problem. Other solutions through upgrading weapon systems and modernizing the MND system need to be explored.

Reporter Park Min-youngpmy4367@

Publisher. Doh-Yeon Kim | Professor Editor. Jinhee Kim | Editor-in-chief. Choi Jong-hyeok | eng-reporter@postech.ac.kr | 77 Cheongam-Ro, Pohang, Gyungbuk, KOREA | Tel 82-054-279-3718

http://times.postech.ac.kr

WED., Jun. 1, 2016

No. 95

From May 18 to 20, the only festival in POSTECH, Sunrise Festival, was held. This year, the festival preparing organization pre-pared the festival with the theme ‘Fest 101,’ focusing on the basics of festivals: things to do, things to see, and things to taste. During the festival, freshmen belonging to several de-

partments danced on stage, sophomores man-aged bars, and upperclassmen enjoyed the festival in various ways.

On the first day, President Doh-Yeon Kim appeared on stage. He said “This fes-tival would be the place for relieving the stresses from studying. Let’s take off our

ties and enjoy the festival.” Also, students of Korea National University of Arts played songs for the festival. On the second day, the singer Ailee performed. To see the perfor-mance, Pohang citizens and students came to POSTECH, so the stage became a harmo-nized place. Responding to the president’s

wish, Postechians enjoyed the stage and the festival.

Reporter Choi Jong-hyeokcjh05@postech.ac.kr

First Edition SEP. 2, 2009

4

CONTENTS

COLUMN: Korean Science and Technology Research will be Stuck

Unfamiliar Flipped Learning

Life is a Series of Exciting Journeys

CAMPUS: DICE’ s unique festival booth, iPub

Change in POSTECH’ s 2018 admission application

Relocation of Dorm 14 Residents

FEATURE: Economic Boycott in Korea, Can It Be Successful?

Habitat for Humanity: Build Homes for Poor People

Social Media as a Way to Earn Money

Controversial Issue about Alternative Military Service

Sunrise Festival: the Stage of Passion of Postechians

<Photo News> POSTECH Programming Contest

On May 28, POSTECH Programming Contest (PPC) was held at Tae-joon Park Digital Library Room 501 and 503. This year, a total of 32 teams (80 students) joined and com-peted for their programming abilities.

Reporter Lee Il-bong

▲Students of Korea National University of Arts play a song

3

5

▲President Doh-Yeon Kim takes his tie off and grabs it ▲Students enjoy the festival and manage a bar

NEWSⅡ WED., Jun. 1, 2016 No. 95

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atom in a form of honey-comb lattice in which one atom forms each vertex. Because of its high thermal, electrical conductivity and strength, graphene is expected to be used on future technologies in-cluding transparent flexible display. However, lack of technology to transfer graphene without forming wrinkles on a semiconductor’s surface, which lowers its electrical conductivity, has been a serious obstacle for the commercialization of graphene.

A POSTECH research team consisting of Professor Kilwon Cho (CE), Hyunho Kim (CE Ph.D.) Seong Kyu Lee (CE Ph.D. candidate), and Researcher Seung Goo Lee (CE) success-fully transferred graphene onto various sur-faces without wrinkles. The research team used organic solvent instead of water, and electrical conductivity has been highly enhanced using the new procedure. The research was announced in Advanced Functional Materials on Apr. 4. This research was conducted with the assistance of the Center for Advanced Soft Electronics.

Reporter Kang Min-seok

It has been extremely difficult, if not impos-sible to control reaction intermediates due to the fact that they immedi-ately underwent struc-tural transformation or dissociation. Research teams consisting of Professor Dong-Pyo Kim of POSTECH and Professor Jun-ichi Yoshida of Kyoto Univer-sity devised a highly efficient synthesis meth-od to control chemical reactions by 1/10000 of a second. This means it has become pos-sible to produce certain molecules with high purity while inhibiting irrelevant reactions. The method proved to be applicable even under extremely low temperature and high pressure. A noteworthy feature in the accom-plishment is that it made a breakthrough in producing high purity compounds, the results that were totally different from those of con-ventional reaction processes.

Reporter Yun Seok-chan

Professor Seung-Jae Lee and Murat Artan on this Ph.D. degree course have found that lifespan is reduced as insulin mimetic substances mount up in a body when sensory neurons are stimulat-ed by tastes and scents. The research team found the influence of sensory neurons on lifespans and their mechanisms, by using Caenorhabditis elegans that are widely used for study of aging. By experimenting on extracted chemicals from colon bacillus that is a prey of Caenorhabditis elegans, they found that the release of insulin hormone called INS-6 was increased when the neurons that sense tastes and smell were acti-vated. This hormone blunts FOXO genes that are responsible for lengthening one’s lifespan and sends signals to other body parts to shorten the lifespan. The research took spotlight among academics for discovering that perceiving one’s environmental changes is the first step towards lengthening the lifespan. For this significance, the research was posted as the most recent top journal on a worldly known international journal of biology, Genes and Development.

Reporter Gwak Jun-ho

Pohang Airport had been closed from Jul. 2014 and finally reopened on Apr. 25, 2016. The cause of long and tiresome resting phase of Pohang Airport came about eight years ago. In Jun. 2008, the city of Pohang granted POSCO the construction of new steel mill. Conflicts arose when marine military group found an un-approved building on the site of clearance for the aircrafts near the military base. It was a year

after the Pohang city’s approval. POSCO had spent over 1 trillion KRW and the building was then 90 percent completed, and its height ex-ceeded 19.4 meters over the legal regulation of 66.4 meters. With no going back to the construc-tion, the marine, city of Pohang and POSCO fi-nally settled on a solution, making the runway 378 meters longer. When the residents of Dong-hae-myeon fought back against the construction, the case was settled with Ministry of National Defense by raising the altitude of runway by four meters in Aug. 2014.

Pohang Airport is back in action now. How-ever, with KTX as a competitor and considering one route in hand (Pohang to Seoul) that costs at least 60,000 KRW, its competence is still questionable.

Reporter Park Geun-woo

Professor Wook-Shin Han (CiTE) and Hyeon-ji Kim (CiTE Integrated.) developed a network analysis technology that is easy-to-use. Hyeonji Kim submitted her paper last Nov. as an under-graduate student. It is extremely rare for papers with an undergraduate student as the first author to be presented at ACM SIGMOD, a globally recognized symposium in the database field.

The new DUALSIM technology is very dif-ferent from the original method. Rather than re-quiring hundreds of computers as a server, the new technology can handle huge amounts of graph data just by using an ordinary personal computer. Her epoch-making development re-quires much less usage of memory and still in-creases the processing speed by a dozen times.

Wook-Shin Han, her academic advisor, said this technology will have an important signifi-cance not only for fields related to data process-ing, biology, chemistry, etc., but also businesses and laboratories that require big data analysis, and highly praised Hyeonji Kim’s potential.

Reporter Jeong Yoon-han

Controlling Chemical Reactions by 1/10000 of a Second

Foods’ tastes and scents can influence on one’s lifespan

Renewed Pohang Airport

DUALSIM Technology Accepted for SIGMOD 2016 Presentation

Method for Wrinkle-Free Transfer of Graphene Developed

< World News ><Don’t start a fire in Asia, China warns Obama after Vietnam arms deal> - The Washing-

ton Post

Obama announced lifting of embargo on arms sales to Vietnam, accusing China of es-

tablishing militarizing South China. China blames the United States for making Vietnam

antagonize China.

<Remains from Egypt Air wreckage examined amid conflict over initial findings> - The

Washington Post

There is an ongoing controversy over cause of the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight MS804,

in which all its 66 passengers were killed

<North Korean workers defect from overseas restaurant, says South> - BBC

13 North Korean workers working at a restaurant in a Chinese city Ningbo fled to South

Korea, North Korea accusing South Korea of abduction

POSTECH Founds Official Rowing Team

On May 19, the opening ceremony for the POSTECH rowing team was held at POSCO International Center. Sporting director is Professor Man Ju Kim (CHEM) and coach is former national team member, Eun Yeong Park. The rowing team consists of 13 fresh-men and 8 sophomores. Members applied for the team or were recruited during physi-

cal fitness class. Organizing the team was completed in Apr., but the final team selection will be made during summer vaca-tion intensive training. Tryouts will take place during summer vacation or early in the second semester. The captain of the rowing team, Ha Jeong-ho (EE 16) was a rowing athlete of Lawrenceville School in New Jersey for a year and a half. In May, POSTECH rowing team

is trained with rowing machine three times a week at the school gym. They will start practicing at Hyeongsan river in June, and participate in national championships held in Aug. and Sep.

Reporter Lee Sang-hui

Step to Cooperation; Industrial-Educational All-in-One Professor System

Introducing industrial-educational all-in-one professor system, POSTECH established LG display and POSTECH industrial-educa-tional center. The system set research man-power as a professor of POSTECH which is needed to the industry. Through the employ-ment, POSTECH takes the demand of industry

by the professor’s research. For the first part-ner, LG display, POSTECH will appoint two more professors in this year, and POSTECH plans to cooperate with other industries, estab-lishing 10 research organization.

The system is expected to increase commu-nication, cooperation with industry, and en-hance the competitiveness through establish-ment of network. Also, considering that one of current purposes of POSTECH on the edu-cation to student is practical training of abil-ity, the system could achieve trained students through the industrial and educational all-in-one professor. As a result, the accessibility of students and the research to society will boost economic development.

Reporter Choi Jong-hyeok

Exchanges with Korea Air Force Academy

On May 12 and 13, POSTECH and Korea Air Force Academy (AFA) held exchange events at POSTECH campus. AFA juniors majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering visited our campus. On May 12, AFA students experienced major lectures of POSTECH such as “Sensors and Measurements” from Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. The next day, they had activities with Postechians like futsal friendly match and the recreation time at the POSCO Inter-

national Center. Female Undergraduate Association vice president Kang Min-ji (CHEM 15), who directed and participated in the exchange programs, said “Knowing about different students in AFA was a pre-cious time for me.” She continued, “AFA fellows had their distinct vision toward life, and it inspired me a lot.”

Even though the events took place at POSTECH, few POSTECH students par-

ticipated in the events. POSTECH has held the exchange programs with AFA since 2011, under the management of Innovation Cen-ter for Education. As part of exchange pro-gram, AFA annually visits POSTECH, and POSTECH conducts Activity HASS program, “Group Activity” during summer session. This year, exchange programs were directed by Undergraduate Association and Female Undergraduate Association.

Reporter Lee Il-bong

▲ Opening ceremony for POSTECH rowing team

▲Prof. Dong-Pyo Kim

▲Korea Air Force Academy juniors visited POSTECH as an exchange event.

▲Sign of industrial-educational center is attached

ⅢOPINION No. 95 WED., Jun. 1, 2016

In POSTECH, some professors changed the method of lecture to flipped learning af-ter the president of POSTECH recommended this new type of learning. Flipped learning is the method of lecture that a professor offers online lectures and students study them in ad-vance of offline class. In the offline lecture, students discuss the online lectures’ contents or solve problems of the contents. As far as I heard, however, many Postechians do not discuss contents and also do not ask ques-tions from the flipped learning lectures. I think that the reason for this situation is many students are accustomed to obtaining knowl-edge without doubt and they are reluctant to say something in class. I find the reason for this situation from POSTECH.

We can easily see a very quiet classroom in Korea. Teachers give lecture and some-times ask a question about the lecture to students to check whether every student un-derstands it or not. The response, however, is usually silence. Do they really understand the entire lecture or do they have any curiosities? Maybe, they would not. Then, what makes them so quiet in the class? To figure it out, we should consider the style of education in Korea. From middle school to high school, a lecture is focused on injecting the knowledge written on textbook to students. Students do their best to understand and memorize the knowledge for getting a high score on a test. If teacher says that some parts of the text book is not contained in the test, students usually do not study the parts. The easiest way of getting a high score would just mem-

orize all of the knowledge, assuming that all of contents on a book are true that they do not have to waste their time to doubt for it. Therefore, many students become a passive learner that they are accustomed to obtaining knowledge without doubt. They rarely study with a critical and various view points. In ad-dition, by similar reason, they are used to just listen to lecture and keep calm.

An expert said that flipped learning method could realize ‘intrinsic lecture’ that promotes higher-level thinking and ‘ac-tive learning’ that students make a profound study from teacher’s lecture and discuss it with other students. Considering these strong points of flipped learning, we should be fa-miliar with and enthusiastically participate in flipped learning.

Unfamiliar Flipped Learning

On May. 16, Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced they will abolish the Tech-nical Research Personnel (TRP) and Skilled Industrial Personnel through a Maeil Economy newpaper article. According to MND’s an-nouncement, the number of selected people gradually decreases from 2018 and completely disappears until 2023. In particular, military serve replaced with the Ph.D.’s course is to be abolished from 2019.

President Doh-Yeon Kim said “Graduate course is the flower of scientific research, but this treatment is like detaching a bud and at-taching the bud again”, and many people from various fields revealed their strong objection and worries about the abolition of TRP. Even inside of POSTECH, TRP abolition became a huge issue.

There are broadly two reasons why MND abolishes TRP system. Decreasing military resources due to the continuous low birth rate is the first reason. Soldiers who will directly engage in a battle are insufficient, and MND insists the complete abolition of alternative military service to other national ministries. By abolishing the TRP first, MND added that the policy can be regarded as privilege of major universities, since most of them are from SNU, KAIST, and POSTECH.

However, many universities including POSTECH as well as whole science field strongly oppose to the abolition of TRP. This is the case because TRP has highly contributed to the development of national science, technol-ogy, and academic studies since 1970s. The research conducted by TRP during the three years of military obligation contains national defense technologies and national projects. We can clarify the research during the period when we calculate the research loss rate without TRP using POSTECH internal data. POSTECH have

completed or having been conducted 31 re-search assignments from MND through 2013 to 2016. Considering the characteristics of scien-tific field, graduate students are directly linked to research power and even though they put new agents to fill the blank of missing gradu-ate students, it takes at least three years (the period for Ph.D. work completion). Therefore we can assume that the abolition of TRP brings the loss of each research assignment. Accord-ing to the assumptions and the ratio of TRP in each department, research loss rate of national defense research is calculated to be 23 percent. With respect to national research, 20 percent of currently ongoing research is suddenly stopped. Followings are the list of research that Korea has to abandon in order to make “only” 2,500 additional soldiers: Super heat resisting alloy powder, Next generation long range air survey system, Low frequency transmission technol-ogy, etc.

Economic arena also expressed distinct ob-jection. For the cases of small businesses, they improved their competitiveness by conducting high quality of research with designated TRP.

They concern the loss of human resources. In 2013, TRP made 133.6 billion KRW of effect on production inducement, and 38.1 billion KRW of add value inducement effect.

Moreover, logic of MND’s claims includes flaws. Modern warfare is based on science technology, not the number of soldiers. Most advanced countries such as the U.S., England, and Germany deals with the modernization and advancement of military by developing the technology. It raises doubts about how 2,500 additional soldiers will enhance the level of national defense, while giving up the ongoing research. The “privilege” issue about TRP that the beneficiaries are concentrated in major uni-versities, misleads the reality of Military Man-power Administration, because they inevitably arrange TRP to the place where major faculty and instruments are available.

Accordingly, POSTECH undergraduate asso-ciation held emergency student central manage-ment committee on May. 17, 12:00 A.M. It was only 12 hours after the relevant article had been published, but we planned various responses and scenarios through the committee. Emer-

gency student’s representative’s general meet-ing was held on the same day, 12:30 P.M., and decided for objection in the name of POSTECH undergraduate association and the participation to the “National Science and Engineering Stu-dent TRP Special Task Force”. We also held an opposing press interview on May 19, at the Na-tional Assembly building.

MND took a step back, saying “The abolish-ment is not fixed yet”, as many people objected to the announcement. They now sustain their basic attitude about decreasing military resourc-es. They urged they will gradually decrease the number of soldiers and set aside national defense technology preparing for the modern and future warfare in their National Defense Innovation plan 2020 and 2030, respectively announced in 2007 and 2015. However, they delay their innovation plan so easily and rather force research manpower to leave laboratory. It is already the second postponement of MND’s innovation plan.

Particularly for the students who major sci-ence and engineering, it is so disappointing that MND judges problems for our “lives” so easily. I hope the point of view that this country stares at research and studies, and I strongly insist the total annul-ment of the TRP abolition policy.

Column Korean Science and Technology Research will be Stuck

Sang-Su Kim (LIFE 13)POSTECH 30th Student President of

Undergraduate Association

Postechian Column

Lee Gyuhyeok (PHYS 14)

I enjoy travelling around. For me, travel is one of the few things that I can definitely say attracts me. At the end of every semester, I sit in front of a table and start to design the up-coming vacation’s trip. I do not remember the exact time when I started treating the travel as part of my life, but I guess it was affected by my family. My family used to take short trips every weekend. We called it “Driving,” since we drove to various destinations. I learned a lot of things through these trips. Although I lived in Seoul, I was able to feel and experi-ence many things, especially the nature of this country. We visited resorts, parks, lakes, and valleys, usually located in Gyeonggi Province. One day, we even drove to the East Sea at mid-night, just because my sister and I wanted to go to the sea. Every trip inspired me and became a motivating force for living the next week. It also extended my point of view and insight. However, as I grew up, time gap between the Driving became longer due to the excess study loads. Nowadays, my family has no more time to spend on Driving. I still miss those days.

I forgot those feelings that travel brings me for a while. I decided to travel again last year, during my first summer vacation in university. I was such a couch potato for the first month of vacation, and I thought about a special break-through that would refresh my vacation. The breakthrough I found was a Rail-Ro trip with my high school friends. During the five days of road trip, we experienced all sorts of hardships. Sleeping in the train, walking 2 kilometers un-der the scorching sunlight, unexpected events in various places, and embarrassing situations

made the trip more dynamic. However, we overcame those events, and they became essen-tial assets for us. Since then, I started to travel around, whenever I can afford it.

Escaping from my personal reminiscence, let me talk about a recent event. Two days before the Sunrise Festival, a news article “struck” the entire campus. The Ministry of National Defense announced their scheme to gradually abolish the exemption from military service due to the continuous decline of population and following decrease of military size. Many fel-lows around me are still confused about their future with respect to the military serve. The fu-ture we had drawn got blurred in one moment.

Nevertheless, life is a series of exciting jour-neys. No matter how carefully you plan the journey, unexpected situations occur. A trip is completed with every step you make during the journey. It makes the journey “alive”, and that’s why I got attracted to it. Postechians, I want to say that this is the moment we should fill our journey with our efforts. Not just watching the situation, not just discouraging ourselves, this is the moment in which we make our future by ourselves.

Life is a Series of Exciting Journeys

Reporter Column

Reporter Lee Il-bong

▲Timeline for the reduction plan change of Ministry of National Defense

CAMPUSⅣ WED., Jun. 1, 2016 No. 95

CAMPUS

The Housing Services aims to renovate all existing dormitory buildings by 2020 on the grounds that students’ satisfaction of living is decreasing owing to the deterioration in the buildings. This year, there are upcoming ren-ovations for dorm 7 during summer vacation

and female dorm 1, and dorm 12 for graduate student during the second semester. There is no relocation planned for residents of dorm 7 since the renovation will take place during summer break, meaning that most of the resi-dents will be off campus long enough for the renovation to be completed. On the contrary, in case of dorm 1 and dorm 12, relocation of residents is inevitable. Currently, there are 20 dorm buildings dedicated for males, 3 for females, and Residential Colleges (dorm 20, dorm 21). When it comes to relocating male residents, they simply need to pack their be-longings and move to other dorms although it is easier said than done. However, it entails more processes when it comes to dealing with female residents. There is a problem arising due to insufficient capacity of existing fe-male dorms when dorm 1 is left out. As coed dorms are against the Housing Services’ poli-

cies, this requires that a male dorm building be empty for female residents to dwell in. Thus, the Housing Services decided to relo-cate residents of dorm 14 to other buildings. This is mainly because it can accommodate 98 people and currently houses 58 percent of its maximum capacity. Current residents of dorm 14 were given 81 days to move out from May. 12 to Jul. 31. Also, they were not asked to move out of the blue, but were informed of this a semester ago. Thus, some residents already started living in other buildings this semester. Some may question that conduct-ing renovations on a female dorm building during summer vacation may have been able to obviate the need for relocation. However, dorm 1 is a building which size is big enough to house 120 people. Seeing from previous renovations on a dorm building with capacity for 120 people, which took 4 months to com-

plete, the Housing Services concluded that the summer vacation was not long enough to finish the renovation. The Housing Services admitted that the renovation may entail in-convenience for some minor group of indi-viduals, and requested for cooperation and consideration for pursuing common interest.

Reporter Yun Seok-chanSeokchan0622@

Relocation of Dorm 14 Residents

DICE’s Unique Festival Booth, iPub

Change in POSTECH’s 2018 Admission Application

International students have traditionally had their own booth in the festival, called ‘iPub’. The booth sells exotic international cuisines and drinks that are often not common to Ko-reans. The Postech Times interviewed Hyo-seung Lee(EE 13), the representative of DICE, the dormitory in POSTECH for international students and Sun-young Jung(LIFE 13), the head manager of this year’s iPub.

Q. What dishes and drinks are going to be served this time?

In this year’s iPub, Pakistan, Vietnam, Sin-gapore, and Kenya participated. One cuisine for each of the four countries, chicken paratha (flat bread traditionally made in South Asia) roll, pho (Vietnamese rice noodles), hokkien noodles, and chapatti & beef stew with fried kales (chapatti is a traditional Indian bread) were served. Unfortunately, for this year, no alcohol was served. While iPub was prepared with spontaneous participation, this year’s

iPub lacked participants. Also, even though iPub has been initiated with financial sup-ports partially from International Students and Scholar Services (ISSS), the budget was not enough to prepare for drinks.

Q. Where do you guys get access to for-eign ingredients?

Making sure that correct ingredients are purchased is the most important and difficult job for iPub. Purchasing foreign ingredients ensures that exotic taste is kept for the cui-sines, at the expense of high prices and diffi-culty of purchasing them. Therefore, there had to be some compromises in the sense of bud-get, where too expensive ingredients were re-placed by appropriately similar Korean ingre-dients. Fortunately, international students were fully aware of where to get access to exotic ingredients that were not common in Korea. Most of foreign ingredients that did not exist in common markets were purchased from the

internet or sometimes from the Asian market that sold Halal ingredients.

Q. How is the preparation team for iPub organized?

The preparation team was organized ac-cording to the country, like Pakistan, Viet-nam, Singapore and Kenya for this year. For the sake of communication with others, each team had one Korean manager. The managers help international students with purchasing food ingredients that are mostly written in Ko-rean, advertisements of iPub to other Korean students, tasting food, etc. Furthermore, while some managers who are confident with cook-ing help international students with preparing the cuisines, other managers execute other jobs such as budget management and purchas-ing team t-shirts.

Reporter Gwak Jun-hodjgwak@

On Apr. 27, POSTECH undergraduate ad-missions officially announced general criteria for POSTECH’s undergraduate admission in 2018. The released document from the office highlighted two main modifications. First, there will be a slight change in equal chance selection admission for agricultural and fish-ing county residents, in that students’ resi-dence status report in the claimed county is

now a requirement. The second part acknowl-edges the most notable change in the applica-tion process, which is sure to affect virtually every regular admission applicants.

The main idea of the second section is to “recruit every regular admission type under-graduate students as unified major, with the exception of Creative IT Talented admission type applicants.” The document specifies the reason for the change as means to provide opportunities for multi-disciplinary academ-ics and to extend one’s sight on his/her career paths. As a result, preselection of major in ap-plication process will no longer be available, and it is so for the regular, international and equal opportunity admissions.

Unified major in POSTECH is very similar to KAIST’s undeclared major and Univer-sity of California Davis’s exploratory ma-jor. These admission types have one thing in common; students are capable of holding their major decision until the end of the first year. Some schools, such as Carnegie Mellon University and University of Virginia, let the decision held as late as 4th semester. In fact,

it is easy to find such cases in many U.S. uni-versities with undeclared major.

Nonetheless, none of Korea’s research-oriented university requires a major to be decided on application process. That is an exception for POSTECH. While POSTECH has been recruiting about 70 undergradu-ate students as unified major every year, the university has also been recruiting about 250 applicants with majors preselected. Selecting majors early gives students an edge in tak-ing preparations for the future courses with more focus, and lets students to immerse in the major with at least a year ahead of un-declared students. In addition, many students who study in natural sciences and engineer-ing have more certainty in what field they are going to follow. Since 100 percent of POSTECH’s applicants are to choose natural sciences or engineering majors now or later, this advantage has been, to some degrees, a unique factor of POSTECH that could have drew many students in. However, the very assumption lies on a flawed core. It is that if students are not 100 percent positive of their

future path, preselection of majors could de-feat its own purpose, which is to accelerate students in their acclaimed path.

Encouraging undeclared major stems from the state of today’s world. Rapid growth of technology has been disrupting the society for quite a long time. When students look at the growing number of possibilities and ma-jors, they may falter. Major selection is surely the biggest milestone leading into the adult-hood. Even with setbacks, many universities have already decided that giving students more time to experience more is going to be more promising. POSTECH’s choice on un-declared major might, in that sense, act as a solution to ease the overwhelming burden for the students.

Reporter Park Geun-woosilmari@

<Scientist in June>

Born on June 13th, 1831 is the well-known Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk

Maxwell, mostly known for his advances in the fields of electricity and magnetism. How-

ever, there are other surprising discoveries this third greatest physicist of all time have

made.

One of them was the discovery of components of the rings of Saturn. He proved that the

rings of Saturn are composed of numerous small particles. Maxwell was awarded the Ad-

ams Prize in 1859 along with £130!

▲The poster used at Sunrise Festival

Source:google.com

▲Students after 2018 should find their own major

ⅤFEATURE & CULTURE No. 95 WED., Jun. 1, 2016

FEATURE

Economic Boycott in Korea, Can It be Successful?Recently, Reckitt Benckiser Korea, also

known as Oxy, caused controversy because of their highly toxic humidifier disinfectant. Over 1800 victims, including 266 deaths, have been reported, but Oxy maintained an irresponsible attitude. Not only the victims, but the whole Ko-rean society was enraged by Oxy’s attitude. Civic groups started to boycott Oxy’s products and it spreads rapidly to public and retailers.

Like the case of Oxy, customers sometimes deliberately refuse to purchase particular prod-ucts in order to achieve a certain purpose. This is called boycott. The term is originated from Eng-lish landlord C.C.Boycott, who tried to banish peasants but failed because of the opposition of peasants. One of the most well-known economic boycotts is the boycott against beef price increase in US in 1973. It eventually succeeded as Rich-ard Nixon decided to freeze the beef price.

In Korea, a boycott against Namyang Dairy Products is one of the most successful examples of boycotts. Namyang was the target of boycott in 2013 because Namyang forced numerous sales agents to buy and sell their products instead of products from other companies. Retailers re-

fused to sell Namyang’s products, and soon the public participated in the boycott. As a result, Namyang’s sales decreased over 10%, and ran a deficit in 2013 for the first time since it has been established. However, Namyang made a turn to profit in third quarter of 2015, competing with Maeil Dairy for the top place in dairy industry. Moreover, Fair Trade Commission decided to lower the penalty fined on Namyang from 12.4 billion to 0.5 billion won. Eventually, the boycott against Namyang Dairy Products concluded only partially successful.

The problem is that there were no successful boycotts in Korea that damaged the business se-verely, or induced a dramatic change of policy. On the other hand, there were numerous boycotts that actually damaged the business in other coun-tries. Yukijirushi Dairy and Enron corporation fell into bankruptcy and Volkswagen suffered a tremendous loss because of a boycott. Apple, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola were forced to change their policy. Civic activists were pointing out a lack of consciousness about corporation social responsibility, CSR, from both corporations and public.

According to the survey conducted by Presi-dential Committee of National Cohesion in Nov. 2014, 52.8 percent of respondents did not agree that Korean society awards enough for efforts and participation. Also, according to the research on the consumer's consciousness about boycott by J.H. Park published in 2010 at the Laboratory of Management consultant Kongju University, consumers do not tend to participate in boycotts as boycotting limits range of choice and causes discomfort to customers. From this research, it can be concluded that Korean people tend to

think more highly of convenience than social issues and also believe that their action cannot change the society.

Still, civic activists are expecting the boycott against Oxy to be the first successful case of boycotting in Korea. Jiyeon Jeong, the secretary general of the Consumers Union of Korea, said, “In the case of Oxy, retailers and consumers are participating actively unlike before, because of the fatal outcome that Oxy caused.”

Reporter Kang Min-seoknedraw22@

According to research conducted by the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), people spend an hour ev-eryday on Social Network Services (SNS). Whereas the purpose of SNS is usually to communicate, upload pictures, kill time and so on, some use it as a way to earn money. The new trend has changed the nature of SNS.

First of all, there are advertisements that the social media companies sponsor. Face-book, for example, has some posts with

“Sponsored” written on them. This means that a user, being it a company or person, has paid the social media company to make the advertisement go public.

However, there are ways for mere users of social media to earn money for themselves. One of the ways is by gathering fans, also known as followers. The system works, for example, by a Facebook page gathering fol-lowers. Because there is a set price per every follower, the value of the page increases ev-ery time they get a new follower. The market price may differ time to time, but the average price per a single follower is about 30 KRW. It might be hard to get hold of how much it can add up to. A following of 100,000, for ex-ample, could generate 3 million KRW.

The question is why advertisers look for accounts that have a large amount of follow-ers. Once one follows a page, it means that the follower can and must see whatever the page uploads. In other words, if a page up-

loads an advertisement then the followers have no choice but to come across the adver-tisement. Therefore, the effect of advertising increases as the number of followers of a page increases.

While some buy and sell accounts with a certain amount of followers, others have found a way to earn profits the other way around, by offering to increase followers of a certain page. The Postech Times received a mail recently offering to increase the num-ber of followers of our Facebook page. When selling an account, the average cost per fol-lower on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is 40 KRW.

Once a page has sufficient followers, there are a couple of ways to earn money. The first is to sell the account itself to an advertising agency. Another is to get sponsors from ad-vertising agencies, small businesses, etc.

There are a number of systems on how the cost of advertising is set. For instance, on a

standard of an account with 200,000 fans, it costs 1 million KRW for a month’s worth of advertising. One other way the cost is set is by counting the number of likes the advertis-ing post gets. The more likes or feedback the advertisement gets, the higher the cost goes.

This tendency has startled many social me-dia users whether or not these profit-making methods are appropriate. One of the reasons is because there have been some incidents re-lated to earning profits through SNS activity. Not long ago, a teenager, who learned the ba-sic tools of hacking through the internet, was caught hacking into a Facebook account with large amount of followers and then selling it. There are lots of ways to earn profits, but it needs to stay within the law.

Reporter Jeong Yoon-haniamyh1@

Social Media as a Way to Earn Money

“Habitat for Humanity,” also known as “Habitat” in short to a number of Korean peo-ple, is a Christian volunteering organization that builds residences for poor people. It was founded by Millard Fuller and his wife Linda Fuller in 1976. They built residences for peo-ple in Zaire, Africa. The organization aims to improve the quality of education and living by providing residential surroundings, ultimately contributing to the development of the state. Currently, Habitat for Humanity is at work in

more than 70 different nations. In Korea, the organization began campaigning in the late 1980s and made an official start in 1992.

Habitat campaign not only constructs, but also repairs existing constructions. The cam-paign includes repairing activities such as thermal retrofitting, washroom installation, and roof reinforcements. For sufferers, Habi-tat for Humanity offers wooden temporary dwelling units. Globally, Habitat for Human-ity Korea provides volunteering service to 70

other nations joining the campaign. Volun-teers build houses, are educated on the im-portance of habitation, participate in cultural interchange activities, and look around the at-tractions in foreign countries.

Habitat for Humanity Korea carries on various campaigns in order to increase pub-lic interest toward the organization and attract potential donors. One of them is the handwrit-ing campaign, which began in late February and lasted for about 2 months. People upload-ed pictures of their handwriting on SNS, and the content of the handwriting was given by Habitat for Humanity Korea. It read “Invest 1 minute in the campaign. 1000 handwritings gathered by this campaign will build a house for poor families with children” The handwrit-ing always finished with hashtags: “#Habitat for Humanity Korea #Handwriting for Hope.” People who uploaded the handwriting tagged two or three of their friends so that they could also participate in the campaign.

During and even after the campaign period, plenty of people participated in the handwrit-ing campaign. The total number of Habitat handwritings gathered for 21 days from Apr .1 to Apr. 21 was 8952. The data was derived by counting the handwritings uploaded on Twitter, Facebook, and other blogs by PulseK,

a big data analysis service on SNS.Now the campaign is over and many people

wonder how their handwritings helped poor families with children. According to the per-son in charge of Habitat for Humanity Korea, they will build 1 house without compensation as more than 1000 handwritings were gath-ered by the campaign. The family who will receive the benefit from this campaign is se-lected by an internal meeting. Building will be completed by the end of June, in Cheonan.

People may wonder the source of the or-ganization’s funding. Two kinds of resources are needed to build a house: construction ma-terials and manpower. The family who moves into new habitat needs to pay back prime cost of construction in installments over a set pe-riod. However, this fee is interest free and is about 60 percent of general cost of construc-tion. This accounts for 16 percent of total in-come of Habitat for Humanity Korea. Most of its income comes from donations from com-panies, individuals, governments, churches, and from abroad. In terms of manpower, the beneficiary must participate in the construc-tion along with volunteers.

Reporter Lee Sang-huisanghui@

Habitat for Humanity: Build Homes for Poor People

▲Buisness Profit Rate of Namyang since 2011 ▲Members of KFEM calling for a boycottSource:google.com

Source:google.com

▲ Writing sample of Habitat for Humanity Korea's handwriting campaign