The First Feeling in the Campus
Actually, I thought that I would never feel something special when I enter the gate of the campus. I just thought that the feeling that going to the university is not that different from the normal life. Surprisingly, I felt something motivated. Though the Korea University Sejong Campus is not that good in Korea, I could know that university is something different from usual high school.
As my intuition, when I took the first class of the computer programming course, I didn’t know how to use Visual Studio, but some of the students already knew it and started to coding regardless of proceeding the class. Though I didn’t know what they were coding, the moment was quite shocking to me and I focused on the course and decided to get good grades on entire courses. (Actually, if I were the man at the time, I would not try to get good grades on entire courses, but tried to learn more about CS(especially programming) and Algorithms.)
The main gate of Korea University Sejong Campus
The Man Who Did Not Know What He Should Do
Many of friends in the same class think that I am the person who always tries to do one’s best and make an effort to achieve one’s goal. Honestly, half true and half false. I was the man who tries to get a good GPA, but that’s all. I should have studied more about CS, Algorithms, or Programming, but I never thought about it. I just studied the given things on the courses. If I think that I could get a good grade on each exam or already finished the assignment, I stopped studying and played the game, “League of Legends” with friends. I knew that the best way in the university was getting great GPA. I just spent my whole vacation useless in Freshman grade.
Tried to Learn More in the Spare Time and Found a New Goal
At the end of the freshman, I noticed that I should not spend my time like this. I was the man who only has good GPA and nothing else. Though I was the great student in my campus, when I compared to other prestigious university, I was nothing. The students who were studying hard was studying not only the courses in their university, but also they were trying to do projects, participating in the algorithm contests, or applying internship. I was in the same age, but I just played the game in my home. The reason why I came to the university was not playing computer games. In my spare time during vacation, I opened the book which name was “The Easy Instruction to Learn Data Structure with C++”, and tried to practice it.
Also, for the students in Sejong campus of Korea University, I noticed that there was special chance to change their campus to Seoul. I thought that “I have such a great GPA now, so how about getting prepare to change the campus to Seoul? If I made it, I could compete with the students who have global competence and learn from them. Also they can motivate me a lot more than the students in this campus.”, so decided to apply campus transfer at the end of the sophomore grade. Finally, I found the documents about campus transfer
The Information of Campus Transfer in Sejong to Seoul
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For transferring campus from Sejong to Seoul, the applicants should satisfied at least more than 4.0 GPA of total 4.5 and more than 900 TOEIC score of total 990. Though the interviewers in the Seoul Campus prefer the student who has the highest score among the applicants, if the applicants are satisfying the certain criteria like above, then the knowledge of the Department that applicants applied to is more important.
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For example, student A has 4.5 / 990 but does not understand one’s major and student B has 4.25 / 950 but fully understand one’s major, interviewers prefer to pick the latter student.
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The number of the successful applicants on each department are less than equal to 2(proportion to the number of the students in the department, but this is the ordinary case) among the entire applicants of each department. However, if the level of the applicants are not that good, interviewers can pick no one to be the successful applicants regardless of the TO.
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This system is only valid for the students who are in the end of the sophomore grade. Also, the students have only one chance at the end of the sophomore.
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TO of each department is randomly assigned proportion to the number of the students in the department. In the worst case, there could be no TO.
Needed to Take a Break from University for Military Service
While I was preparing the campus transfer, one of my friends recommended to apply ROKMC for military service together. I was wondered because I could not go for a military service by taking a course of doctor’s degree in the future (At then, I wanted to go graduate school for a doctor’s degree). However, this was such an unusual experience and I imagined to be a soldier when I was little. I thought “If I had to, I would like to do it together.” and there were nothing to be afraid of. After the 1st semester of 2016, I submitted the request form of time off for 2 years. Finally, I could get the email from Military Manpower Administration that I should be gathered in Pohang for enlisting. I stopped studying CS, and pledged to do my best in ROKMC for learning anything with professional mind. Also, I planned to keep studying CS after dissmissed.
What Did You Learn in the Military Service?
There are a lot of stuffs that I would like to talk about, but briefly, I learned the network for the battle(both Wire & Wireless), server system to maintain communication, how to use linux operating system. The most important thing was I fulfilled my pledge successfully. I did my job as much as I can do, as a result, Commander of ROKMC award me as the best signal corpsman in the 1st Division. The 2 years of the service was quite long, but there were nothing to stop me to study. After dismiss in 2018, I resumed to attend the university and prepare make campus transfer.
So, Did You Make It to Go to Seoul Campus? How Was Your 2nd Semester of 2018?
On my 1st grade and half of the 2nd grade, many of the courses were not that difficult because there were less major courses. At the time, students usually take courses like general requirements or general elective. So as I, I had such a peace time , but when I back from the service, (I already finished all of the general courses) I should take major courses. For me, the Computer Architecture class was too difficult, so I spent most of my spare time to discuss with my friends who were in the same class. Also, I was interested in the field of Information Security, so I took another major courses like Number Theory and Introduction of Information Security. In addition, I joined the group for the cryptography and hacking to learn more about them. I tried simple reversing engineering, classic cryptography with C Language and modern cryptography like AES with C Language. At the end of the semester, I got 4.5 GPA and fortunately, there was enough TO for the campus transfer to Seoul, so I applied. Only talking about the result, I made it to go to Seoul campus. Evaluation of my GPA and TOEIC was good to take the interview. Also, at the moment that I interviewed, I answered smoothly as much as I can.
In front of the Information College in Korea University Seoul Campus after the interview
What Kind of Questions Did You Answered?
Q1 : As I see your GPA, it is very high. How did you get that GPA?
A1 : I wasted much time with playing games when I was in high school. I didn’t want to repeat again, and learning CS was fit to me.
Q2 : The list about the courses that you took, there is “Digital System”. What did you learn from the class? What was the most impressive one?
A2 : I learned how to optimize the circuit by Karnaugh-Map, many kind of flip-flops, and boolean expressions. The most interesting moment was learning how to optimize the circuit. Most of the students felt difficult about it and So was I. However, I enjoyed it.
Q3 : You did not take the algorithm course. Why is it?
A3 : As you know, I’m in sophomore grade. Algorithm class is for senior grade, so I couldn’t take it. Already full when I tried to register.
Q4 : How do you feel when you learn about “Discrete Mathematics” and what did you learn?
A4 : The concept of the set was ambiguous, but I made it clear. Also like “Digital System”, I learned boolean expressions again. Besides, I learned number of cases, proofs, number theory, and so on. Though the course was not that easy, now if I look around the google site, I can understand the explanations well without difficult like before.
Q5 : Do you usually search on Google? When you search the google, what language do you use?
A5 : Of course I do. By google search, I frequently access to stackoverflow and medium, they are such a great web site. In addition, the users in these web sites are usually using English, so I am trying to use English as much as I can.
Q6 : Then, when you read the CS book, do you prefer original books more than translated?
A6 : Yes I do.
Q7 : How do you expect about your GPA in this campus?
A7 : I can make it at least 4.0.
Q8 : The GPA that you’ve said is lower than your current GPA. Does it Ok?
A8 : I’ve already determined not to mind it. Of course, getting good grades on major is important, but I think that’s not all of the study. I would like to do other activities with taking classes in this campus.
... There were more questions, but I’ll skip them.
Eventually, I could be the only the successful applicant in my department. I attended Seoul Campus from 1st semester of 2019.
Next post will be the life in Seoul Campus, especially focusing on what did I do, what did I learn. Thank you.