The Spring Student Festival of 2011 was held from May 2 to May 4 at various locations throughout the KAIST campus. This year’s festival was special in a way, for it also celebrated the 40th anniversary of KAIST.

May 2 signaled the start of the festival. A booth in front of the Creative Learning Building let students make birthday drinks and cakes, allowing them to celebrate both the 40th birthday of KAIST as well as those of KAIST students. While students were busy making birthday cakes and drinks, booths in front of the sports complex sold various drinks and foods such as bubble tea and waffles, to name a few. Some booths often had long queues of students, demonstrating their great popularity. The orchestra performed at the Creative Learning Building at noon as part of the “Visiting Concert.” The university’s Haedong Kumdo club, Active Volcano taekwondo club and PolarBear judo club gave a joint performance next to the main stage at 4:00 p.m., the first joint event organized by the three clubs. The opening event started at 6:20 p.m. with ELKA, KAIST’s cheerleading club, giving a performance. The next event was “Department vs. Department,” an annual event where groups of students from each department compete against each other. This year’s event was hosted by HyoJong Choi, a comedian working for KBS. The winners of the event were the students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who received the grand prize of 400,000 Korean Won. Following “Department vs. Department,” the “Fringe” event began in which various music groups performed. During the event, Crying Nut and JangHoon Kim came up to the stage to entertain the KAIST students. JangHoon Kim especially expressed his affection for KAIST, saying that in order for the standards of science in Korea to rise, KAIST must live and that in order for Korea to survive, science must prosper. The “Fringe” event ended at around 1:00 a.m. the next day.

The highlight of the second day was the Taewool Song Festival, where contestants from all over Daejeon competed for the final round which was held at the main stage in KAIST. The contestants had to send in a video recording of their song to make it past the first round. Afterwards, the second round was held at Mirae Hall in Tae Wul Gwan. Those who passed the second round were given the opportunity to perform on the main stage.

Before the song festival, the “Treasure Island” and “Love is Obtained” event were held next to the JangYoungShil statue and the Creative learning building respectively. Though all the Taewool Festival contestants gave good performances, the judges had to grade them in order to pick the top singer. At last, when all the groups had given their performances, singer JongShin Yoon came up to the stage. Although Yoon is currently starring as a judge in a music competition show that airs on MBC, he came to the festival as a singer. He sang ballads and cheerful songs and while he was singing, the judges tallied their scores. At last, after the popularity, third and second prize winners were announced, the first prize went to Black Sparrows, who won a million Korean Won. During the winning speech, the team said that they would spend a fair portion of the prize money on alcohol, namely soju.

The final day was probably the one many students had been waiting for, mostly because a female celebrity singer was to come as a guest. Before that, an event with the title “?” was held, with comedian SangTae Ahn hosting the event. It contained events like simple OX quizzes, speed truth games and a truth game to find the one single contestant out of the four on stage. After the “?” event was over, the student club festival “SUM” began. Student clubs gave performances and students replied with general good cheer.

The atmosphere was turned up a notch when K-pop singer came on the stage and students went crazy. The students kept moving closer to the stage, giving the organizers in front of the stage a hard time keeping the students back. But once G.Na had sung her songs and left the stage, many students also departed from the main stage area, leaving the remaining student clubs with a small audience to perform for. At last, after the final group gave their performance, the festival came to an end.

Overall, the festival gave students the chance to let loose and simply enjoy the great events prepared by Imagination Effect, KAIST's event preparation committee.