Woori Café in the Undergraduate Library
For most people, the Undergraduate Library is where you go to actually get some work done. For some (like me), we disguise ourselves as hardworking students and go while we secretly want to get distracted and fool around with friends for a while. But regardless of our intentions, the Library is a place where KAIST students study and cram before their exams.

Turning right after entering from the main entrance, you can see Woori Café located on the first floor. Even though the sight of the Café is very obvious, hardly any students go in there with the purpose of reading. The Café is divided into four rooms: a magazine-reading room, a group study room, a movie-watching room with computers and another movie-watching room with a projector screen.

The magazine-reading room offers a magazine collection with topics ranging from fashion and design to geography and science. Feel free to pop in and pick a magazine to browse through while taking a break from studying. It is usually quite empty, so you don’t have to worry about reading amongst a crowd of people (which could prove distracting). You can even bring your own magazine or book since it is just a small, quiet room with comfortable chairs for reading casually.

Outside Coffee Bean in the International Building
Back in December 2010, Doctor Kew-Ho Lee, a KAIST alumni who now works at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, donated books to the open space outside of Coffee Bean in the International Building. Since then, the tall shelves that reach the ceiling have received more books. They range from fiction to non-fiction as well as college brochures and guides to student exchange programs.

Feel free to come and enjoy choosing a random book on a shelf and reading it. There is even a moving ladder that you can climb to reach the top shelves. You never know when you might find a good book, or suddenly get the idea of going to France on an exchange program. There are plenty of tables for you to put your textbooks on and study as well as comfortable, long sofas where you can lie down and read. If the weather permits, try going out and reading on the beautiful porch outside. Surrounded by grass and trees, it is the perfect place to feel the breeze on a nice day.

Book Café in the KAIST Library
This actually may not be so surprising: The campus library is probably the very first place you would go to read. Instead of looking through shelves of dusty books, try visiting the first floor of the main library in your spare time – you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

While you know of the campus bookstore as the place to buy textbooks at the beginning of each semester, it offers a diverse assortment of reading materials. The bookstore features everything from monthly fashion and sports magazines to English study materials such as TOEFL study guides to fictions and non-fictions alike. The bookstore also has current bestsellers and English books. Feel free to sit down and browse through them.

Just outside the bookstore in front of the circulation desk is a shelf with a wide range of weekly and monthly magazines you can read. Cosmopolitan to Men’s Health to Time Magazine are only a few examples of what you can find there.

Before you exit the building, take a moment to check out the digital newspaper stand. Daily newspapers are available for those who prefer reading their papers on the big screen.

First floor of N4, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Building
The School of Humanities and Social Sciences Building went through a remodeling process this semester and bears a whole new look. In fact, the building now has its own café on the first floor, where you can find delicious capsule coffee for a reasonable price. While sipping on your coffee on lime-green chairs, turn to the wooden bookshelf full of books written, translated or donated by the school’s professors. Most of these books are available for purchase at the office as well.

The first floor can get tremendously crowded before and after classes, but if you can avoid those times, it is one of the best places to read. Choose one from the bookshelf or bring your own.