Being in a good environment is absolutely crucial to our development. I cannot stress this enough when I say that being picky is a good thing when building your surroundings. People seem to naturally hate chaos and seek order in every possible aspect of life, creating systems where we switch between what we define as "paths". It makes no sense to complain about individual aspects of the system one is currently in, as every system comes in packaged deals of the bad and the good, but what we can do is pick and choose our own presets of pros and cons of every decision. I want to believe that I deserve to be in this preset that is KAIST, or that I am in the right one at all. Thinking about this, I ponder on what the right place even means and what kind of a system KAIST is.

KAIST's vision is to be a world-leading university driven by three C-words: challenge, creativity, and caring. "Challenge" is manifested in our school's goal to embrace failure as an essential part of success to make daring steps less intimidating. "Creativity" is fostered through Edu4.0Q type classes with peer discussions, the exchange of ideas, and more diverse types of assignments. "Caring" is derived from the Confucian philosophy on which Korea is largely founded. Unlike in a clock, however, active ticking doesn't signify that every component is functional up-to-par and in unison. I'm sure there is so much effort behind the scenes that drives KAIST towards its vision that we do not get to see, but I can't help but reflect on its strategy as I am nearing graduation and evaluating my outcomes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a school is judged on its notable alumni, not the number of students that make it to Samsung in their second-semester break. Ideally, it's in the interest of the school to cater to every student and provide them with what they need to reach their individual goals. However, that's not possible. This brings us back to the concept of systems and its definition in the context of our learning environments. Systems create order and provide a process that turns input into output — a school can either dish out well-manufactured competent engineers, an obedient workforce, well-connected politicians, or global-minded leaders. And it's not the goal that I question, it's whether or not a vision is enough without the complete restructure. 

If I had to imagine what a perfect environment of a leading global university could be like, I would point out two attributes: open and ambitiously hasty. Notice how both attributes are not conclusive, goal-oriented, nor individualistically related to professional outcomes. Being unafraid of challenges, creative, and caring is in no way an unworthy goal — it defines what each student should strive to be well, but at the same time is quite ambiguous in how to get there. How does one foster creativity? How do you beat the fear of facing challenges? How do you nurture a caring environment? It seems that the answer is communication. Only through diversity would you truly know how much you don't know and how little you know about what you thought you knew — creativity outside of the box only starts when you know where the box starts and ends. To feel less fear when faced with a challenge or to feel cared for, you need people who can support you or just share their stories — by hearing other people's stories, we can understand that there is truly no competition among us in the grand scheme of things.

If the environment encourages students to do anything, speak to anyone, and gain and give support, then there is nothing to really implement — students will find a way as long as they are ambitious themselves. KAIST is already full to the brim with some of the potentially brightest minds; it would be a waste if they were rated on their ability to memorize definitions, or ranked on their number of published papers with a bare-minimum i10-index.

But of course, it's immature and rather selfish to think this way — for a system to truly be effective, every person within it should have similar goals that match the system's output and the corresponding prerequisites that will become the input. I just couldn't help but wonder what is the current system of KAIST like — what did people grow up wanting, and what do they look forward to?