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It was my first time attending a UST lecture when I was a Johnny-come-lately to Korea - an unfamiliar land to me, one year ago. To my surprise, UST lecture turned out to be much more interesting than what I had pictured in my mind about typical scientific lectures before. It was out of my expectation eventually.
The lecture comprised some couples of sessions with a variety of talks and addresses about hot topics in science, technology, art and social topics. One of those that left good impressions on me was a talk about intellectual property.
The lecturer was a CEO from the law firm representing Samsung in the litigation. At that time, Apple accused Samsung for its transgressing Apple's patents and copying the iPhone and iPad for Samsung Galaxy's design features, finally, Samsung lost the court case in the US and been ordered to pay Apple $1.05bn (£665m) in damages. In fact, we were given with many details from the person who was within the lawsuit like the speaker; therefore he made us captivated by his talk during the lecture. This selection of topic by UST made me very much excited because it addressed the latest current issues at that time. Furthermore, understanding from the talk also served us in the sense that no researcher wants to see his products, patents or work to be intellectually violated as exampled by Apple and Samsung.
This was perhaps the first time I attended a lecture but more like an academic conference in Korea as in UST lecture. For me, it was a fresh experience because this activity is once in a blue moon in my university back in Vietnam. After being here for more than one year, I realized that academic conferences and seminars are held on a regular basis in almost every institute and university in Korea. This fact proves a development in science and technology as well as the up to date research activities in Korea. In reality, the conferences like UST lectures provide good benefits for attendants to keep update with the emerging trends in scientific fields. It also helps students to find a good research direction for him after listening to top researchers, famous professors at the lectures.
Getting back to my first time attending UST lectures, one thing special that I still remember was the team-work skills training. We were divided in to teams; each team had 5-7 students from different countries, including Korean students. Each team was free to choose a scientific project as the theme for their presentation. Everyone in our team was so excited for the cooperation and driven for the discussion of ideas. Finally we came to an agreement of the topic: Integration and remote controlling for a smart house. This is to help people do almost everything from shopping, simple health checks, business transaction inside their home without getting outside. I found this topic quite applicable for smartphone age, nowadays.
At that time, I was a freshman with a lot of things to get accustomed to and did not expect to be the presenter. However, all of the other team members supported me to be the group representative to give the presentation, and I took the job. There was nervousness combined with eagerness in me. I had never been in front of a crowd like this before, my friends were still the support for me and I did a good job as they told me after the presentation. It was astonishing that no one questioned us about our project. Possibly, the topic was not interesting enough, we guessed, but it is not the big concern for us. The importance here was how we worked together effectively in the group, and I became much confident after the presentation. This feeling has been with me along the way ever since.
The range of topics in a UST lecture is quite vast, there are not only science and technology subjects but also social, art and movies included. In last year UST lectures, we were all impressed by a live drum solo performance of an artist after his talk. Later on, we had a lot more entertaining moments with other speakers during their presentations. From my perspective, attending a UST lecture brings us a lot of benefits. We have chance to communicate and mingle with other students in communal activities, work together in a scientific project. These activities provide knowledge, joy and skills, which are not within the limit of the lectures but help students to build their own personality as well.
UST lectures are not rocket sciences but it is filled with useful knowledge, information about things that are happening in the world and around us. Participating in the lectures, we could broaden our mind with things we could not obtain from any books, papers or news. Personally, I am very impressed with UST lectures because of the values it give to students: knowledge, skills and joy. Hopefully, UST continues to maintain and develop this kind of lectures for many next generations of UST students.
I would like to send my thanks to UST for having me an opportunity to write these reviews to you.
