The night air I feel when I ride my bike to school is still fresh, even though it's a hot summer. Even at night, quite a few people jog in front of the school in Gapcheon River Park. Since summer vacation starts right after final exams, it seems like a good time to focus on our annual target again. On the last day of every month, I try to detach myself from my urgent work for a while to have time to think deeply to see if I'm doing the right thing. During this pandemic, I have come to reflect on what graduate school is for.

 

Political demonstrations were performed at other colleges asking for tuition reimbursement because they believe the quality of online lectures is poor. If the lectures are all there is to college life, we may not have to go to college. We can find many world-class lectures on almost anything on YouTube. Then, why do we need college professors if we can easily learn about anything we need on the Internet? What can professors give to graduate students in addition to diplomas? It seems that it will become difficult for professors, lecturers and teachers, who only convey a limited amount of knowledge, to find a role in the future. The faster an area develops, the fewer years the area’s technology will be useful.

 

Graduate students can face similar challenges. Fascinating topics at the beginning of their study can become overwhelmed by the massive research products through computer simulation, artificial intelligence and automated robots by the time of their graduation. It is time to think seriously about our role in the future. Concentrating on finite areas such as established knowledge and optimization cannot survive in competition with artificial intelligence and robots. I think we need to focus on areas where there are no limits. Therefore, I believe it is my job to ask thought-provoking questions, suggest novel methodologies and encourage ambitious trial so that students can pursue their professional value by leaving the fixed answer sheet and looking into the infinite world to find opportunities.

 

When I asked myself where the infinite world of our researchers could go, I was able to create an ideal formula for graduate students, which can be expressed by PV = NRT. PV here means professional value, N stands for Networking, R means Risk-taking and T is for Thinking-hard.

 

Networking. The opportunities to work with people are endless. The closer you are to the center of an active research network, the more you interact with dozens of people. Thus, the sooner you will find useful information and the broader you will spread your results. It is also an opportunity to experience unique ideas and extraordinary efforts that have a different dimension from our group. Even if I cannot systematically teach how to improve networking, interaction with collaborators can snowball through research projects. When I was a student, I worked with people from the Agency for Defense Development and the Korea Institute of Materials Science, and now they have become my lifelong fortune. The reason I send out hot papers every week is that we also need to know who is leading the research in our field. You can meet them at academic conferences. If you have any questions about their papers, please email them cordially.

 

Risk-taking. Although we can try new things, we often hesitate. Of course, there is a risk in that the more difficult a task is, the more likely it is to fail. But there is a more risky world in which people with ordinary results are ruled out first. The more you are taking risks, the more you might fail; however, the more you will also succeed. It's up to you to try or not to try. The thing which does only what are told to do is a robot. We should take an adventurous step further instead of waiting for supervision. The opportunity of life often visited me when I tried an idea, although no one asks to do it.

 

Thinking-hard. People differ from computer programs in that they can think of endless possibilities. However, instead of asking unexplored questions, we prefer to stay in a comfort zone where the answers are visible and tangible. Even though no one limits the areas of our thoughts, we limit ourselves by drawing the limiting lines. For example, because I am a student, because I am Korean, because I am a foreigner, because I am a master's student, thus I should not cross this line. Please don’t do that. Instead, you should travel beyond the limit. In the research community, people who don't have unique questions are considered intellectually lazy people who don't think hard.

 

Please don’t forget the ideal grad equation, PV = NRT