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| THE KAIST TIMES http://kaisttimes.com | |||||||
Hi, I'm Sun-mi Park (Electrical Engineering, entrance year 2004). I don't think the title "leader" is appropriate for a sophomore, especially since I'm too immature to do self-management. Nonetheless I just completed KAIST leadership program - indeed earlier than other students. The enthusiasm for this program still is in my heart, so I am writing this letter to let other students know what I learned in the program.
I took this program last summer during vacation, when everything was new and confusing to me.
I started "leadership training" as soon as my final exams were over. This training was an amazing challenge for me, a person used to staring at the front of the class from a desk. I learned self-development and smooth human relations in an intensive schedule that went from morning to evening and lasted 4 weeks. I especially liked the Franklin planner, which motivated me to practice and reflect on my daily plan.
While I was struck by the freshness of "leadership training," I also enthusiastically took "communication training". This program focused on human relations. In a simple step-by-step way it taught me basic skills, such as how to remember a person's name easily and how to lead conversations. I also learned how to introduce myself to other people impressively, and how to grab attention. The climax of this training was "KAIST Leadership Contest," in which we competed to show all skills we had learned.
I spent my first vacation doing this. The training made me ambitious and enthusiastic.
About the time when autumn semester was almost over, I heard the news that "Military Academy Consignment Education" would take place at Canaan Farmhands School. Although that school was rather far from here, I thought that it would be a wonderful chance and applied for it.
The farmhands school was located in the heart of mountains. We, about 10 people, rose at dawn with an energetic shout. I remember that I volunteered for meal duty in order to do my part in our communal society. I shouted the slogan -"Diligence, Service, Sacrifice!" You can't imagine how valuable the beads of sweat were after the rough mountain climbing, during which we helped and encouraged each other.
I also enrolled in the last leadership program of the winter semester. The processes so far has been extremely meaningful. Nothing else compares with this "culture experience." I imagined that I had become an intellectual in the Chosun dynasty, and that I could feel every aspect of Duksoo palace, Changduk palace, the ancestral shrine of the royal family, Sunkyunkwan (education center in Chosun), and other old houses. Professor Hee-Jung Lee, who continued talking with us even in a juggling bus, gave passionate lectures that made this culture experience especially fine. My friend said that she applied for Professor Lee's "The history of Korean thought(idea)" as a result of these lectures because she was so deeply impressed.
One year has now passed. Looking back, I find that all the lessons I learned were important and meaningful. There is not one exception.
Now, I am doing my last regular training of the course -"Voluntary Service." I am learning to find the courage to give my hand to the people in need at the child care organization "Chunyangwon". I would like to be with them as a teacher of children who need to smile, and perhaps also as a hearty older sister.
I plan now to discipline myself to be a real leader who is willing to help alienated weak people, not the person who cares about only his/her profit.
This perfectly well-organized program is too good to keep to myself. The basic courses teach elementary knowledge based on self-development and smooth human relations, culture experience helping build teamwork up through experiencing ancestors' life, military academy consignment education to help enhance team spirit and physical strength, voluntary service to help foster nobility and virtue, and overseas training to help develop a global mind and cultural understanding.
KAIST students, why don't you follow leader's path with me, staying away from the pile of books a short while?
I hope this writing could be the motive to strike a flame of passion in an excellent young leader's heart. Thanks!
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