Dear Reader,

In this “interconnected” and “globalized” era, anywhere in the world seems so reachable. Just thirteen hours of flight can get you to the opposite side of the planet. Even just a few minutes on your phone will bring to you what’s going on in the other hemisphere. Yet, you often barely know what exactly there is a few subway stations away from KAIST. Besides the usual Eoeun-dong, Gung-dong, Dunsan, and a handful of popular destinations near KAIST, the rest of Daejeon remains quite foreign to most KAIST students. Expand that lens to the entire country, you would realize how many unexplored areas there are in South Korea; you don’t have to be on a plane to visit somewhere unknown to you. With the advancement of transportation and internet technology, physical boundaries seem to matter less and less, but how far do your personal boundaries — where you actually feel comfortable being — extend?

Most attributable to its isolated location, KAIST almost feels like it is in a separate bubble. A common inside joke is that there is a legit time difference between KAIST and the rest of Korean society. Many students tend to stick to the familiar places nearby for socializing, and a vast percentage of social interactions are made with people who are on the same campus; you just end up meeting STEM students all the time. With the lack of opportunities to push your personal boundaries further, it is too easy to be trapped in a certain static mindset without realizing that there is so much more going on outside the familiar territories. In a physical sense, KAIST needs more convenient transportation options, and in a social sense, students need more opportunities to interact with non-KAIST people, such as other university students in Daejeon.

However, we must not forget that even that comfort we feel in our bubble might be a luxury not applicable to everyone. This month’s Feature investigates how accessible KAIST is for students with disabilities. For those with physical disabilities, even the freedom of taking classes they want can be met with hindrances when classrooms do not have adequate accommodations. In this month’s Society, we see how expat children in Korea have to face the constant feeling of rejection from a community that does not welcome them. For people who spend their childhood as a foreigner, having a culture to celebrate or a sense of home to cherish becomes a challenge. In our International editorial, we examine how Shanghai under lockdown has become a place nothing similar to a few months ago, now dominated by chaos and separated from the rest of the country. When the very campus, city, or country one lives in becomes a “foreign” land, the question of how to remove barriers for everyone to truly feel belonged requests more profound discussions as a society. 

And improvements start from the realization that there is nothing we can take for granted — whether it be something personal, such as being able to move around the campus without difficulties, or something more abstract but fundamental like democracy. We must continue the struggle to understand what it feels like to not have such privileges and find ways we can contribute to protecting the rights of those who currently cannot fully enjoy them.
 

Hoping for progress,

Editor-in-Chief

Jisun Lee