KAIST’s Graduate School of Culture and Technology (GSCT) will be dispatching its second high-salary student intern to New Zealand’s Weta Digital this year. The chosen intern, Ph.D. candidate Young Ho Seol, will not only be learning about cutting-edge technology abroad, but will also receive a salary of 20 million won.

Weta Digital is a well-known company specializing in Computer Graphics (CG) special effects and 3D production. The company’s high standards are acknowledged worldwide and some of the company’s past projects include The Lord of The Rings, King Kong and Avatar.

The Graduate School of Culture and Technology (GSCT) is the first inter-disciplinary technology-based graduate school in Korea. Its research areas go beyond traditional contents such as movies and animation and reaches into cutting-edge fields based on digital technologies. So far 124 Masters’ students have graduated from GSCT and this year for the first time, three GSCT graduates received their Doctorates at the 2011 Graduation Ceremony.

Weta Digital had initially asked for a regular quarterly dispatch of student interns, but because of the limitations on student availability arising from KAIST’s academic calendar, they settled for one student being sent annually during the summer vacation. The internship lasts from June to August and the respective student intern stays in New Zealand during the period, while getting involved directly with the technology development team at Weta Digital. The student intern is provided with a round-trip plane ticket, full hotel accommodation during his or her stay and a weekly payment of NZ $1,800 (1.5 million won).

The first student to have been sent was Jaewoo Seo in 2009. Young Ho Seol, who works at the Visual Media Lab of the GSTC, will be the second. Although there are often skilled people from Korea who go abroad to work for Hollywood’s major companies, the achievement of these two students is very significant. Weta Digital’s core R&D department is one of the world’s pinnacle companies in the field of CG and securing a paid internship there is an incredible feat.

Professor JunYong Noh of the Visual Media Lab comments that “Joint research with Weta Digital and dispatch of student interns there shows the global approval of Visual Media Lab…this is a great opportunity for Korea to collaborate with a company globally leading in the field of CG as well as a chance to share and gain high level CG skills.”