The latest changes to KAIST's undergraduate academic requirements see the Freshmen Design Course (FDC) become optional for future incoming freshmen. While those departments that believe in the FDC's importance may obligate their students to take the course, enrollment numbers are expected do drop significantly. The KAIST Herald discusses.

Pro: FDC Prepares KAISTians for the Real World
By Paulo Kemper

My first semester at KAIST was overwhelming. I sought for a top-notch university level education when I chose KAIST over a Japanese university, and I got it first-hand. I had sleepless nights, several team meetings at odd times, and reports and assignments hard enough to make me regret (to some extent) my slacker years. Back in 2008, along with the basic required courses, it was the first time that the Freshmen Design Course (FDC) was a mandatory subject, so none of the students knew exactly what was to come. Despite all the fears and uncertainties, I found FDC to be a very intriguing course; they were even setting a budget for us students to use! When I was presented with the options of the projects available, I got excited with the prospect of the hands-on experiences I would get. However, it seemed that the majority of students did not feel the same way. Under the shade of a collection of very unhappy events that took place in 2011, FDC was then turned into an elective course. Did KAIST make the right decision? In my humble opinion, not this time.

I believe that what drove the decision of changing FDC to an elective was the excessive load on students and faculty. That is neither a new problem nor an exclusive feature at our institute, but sometimes people just need a scapegoat. Let’s take Calculus out, then? No, Calculus is important. So are Chemistry and Physics. KAIST existed for 36 years without FDC, so people wonder why we should keep this new burden for the students. However, the FDC gives students a chance to learn and apply what they have learned, also preparing them for the industry they will be thrown into after graduation.

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology seems to share a similar view on what is necessary and should be taught to engineering students. In one of the criteria to accredit an engineering course, they expect the students to have “an ability to design a system, component or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability and sustainability.” The FDC taught that for all KAIST students, but now only for those who opt to take it. Alas, sometimes it seems people forget what the “T” in our university’s name stands for.

That aside, FDC was also the entrance gate into good academic practices for most freshmen. Students not only learn how to perform decent background research, reference their sources properly and defend their intellectual property, but also to take plagiarism very seriously. If not the FDC, which course then will teach our students not to plagiarize? I do not think KAIST wants to ever see again cases similar to the recent incident with an NCTU professor whose work was plagiarized by one of our Ph.D. candidates.

It is also important to mention that FDC was one of the few courses at our school that actually put the students in a position to unleash their creativity. Of course, it varies from major to major, but I can say that besides the Industrial Design courses and some courses in business, most of us can go through our time at KAIST without necessarily being inventive. But it is far easier to guide 18-year-old freshmen on the creative thinking path early on rather than teaching graduate students in their mid-twenties how to come up with decent thesis topics or grant proposals. The Korean high school mindset of memorizing several pre-set textbooks in order to succeed in university admission exams is not easy to get rid of. And that mindset just does not work in the real world. To thrive in an unbounded environment requires experience and the earlier you start trying new things out, the better.

I have omitted many other positives about the FDC, but I believe most people who are concerned about the future of KAIST alumni would agree that such a course is invaluable in fostering future leaders. It is hard to tell today what the difference will be between students who took the FDC and those who didn’t, but a course that leads freshmen towards research grants and patents surely cannot be a negative one. I would not say that we are hurting our students by having the FDC as an elective, but we are not giving them any advantages over their competitors, either.

Con: A Change for the Better
By Jae Sung Kim

As of this spring semester, KAIST’s Freshman Design Course (FDC) changed from being a basic required course to an optional one. Still, departments that feel the necessity of FDC in their fields can choose to make FDC mandatory for students who wish to enter those departments. However, the size of the course this semester shows that not many students are expected to register for it. It changed to what it should have started out as in the first place. The main goals of the FDC course, which began in 2008 for freshman students, were to allow them to develop real-world problem-solving skills through the use of a systematic design methodology and to learn science communication principles for use in actual design processes. Over the years, though, the course turned into one with many side effects that primarily derived from its obligatory status, even for students who were unmotivated or found no relevance between the FDC and the major they wish to opt for. The fact that the course is one of the hardest that a freshman has to take is another reason that aroused so much opposition, when freshmen already have more than enough mandatory courses to take.

Although the project concepts show a certain degree of diversity in subjects from piezoelectricity to ubiquitous environment, the essence of the course comes down to continuous brainstorming activities, a strict following through systematic design methodology and technicality problems in making a prototype. Those may be necessary knowledge for students who wish to later major in departments that deal with engineering or design. However, for students whose expected majors have the least relevance with the skills that are developed by FDC, many of them are simply not motivated enough to actively participate in the team project. Lacking motivation but having to work due to responsibility as a team member only brings stress, and in worst cases, some students abandon their responsibilities and make the remaining students do all the work. Especially in cases when a team happens to elect an unmotivated team leader who makes the others do all the work or tries to do the least work possible to get through an assignment, the entire team tends to head in the wrong direction or gives up all hope for the course in the middle of the semester. Of course, the irresponsible natures of these students is mainly to blame in those cases, but the crux of the problem is that a course that requires team projects should not be made mandatory for students who find the least motivation and meaning in it. Not only is it a distressing experience for the unmotivated students, but they also tend to discourage other, more willing team members as well.

The required time and effort that need to be put in to successfully follow through the course and make a prototype at the end can in no ways be overlooked. In their first year at KAIST, the number of mandatory courses that freshmen need to take each semester is around four excluding the FDC. On top of that, they have recitation classes and quizzes every week. Pushing the students to take the FDC, which students who have already taken the course jokingly call a “9-credit course,” is too demanding when freshman year should be about adjusting to courses with greater depth and spending time on what they wished to do as university students. Similar courses can be taken in their respective majors that require what the FDC has to provide, so students should not be mandated to take the course and make their lives more hectic than it already is for them in their freshmen year. They already have enough of a workload to adjust to as it is, and that is why the course became an optional one as of this semester.

The knowledge and experience that can be earned from taking the FDC certainly have value, but over the years that the course was made mandatory, the disparities between the reality of freshmen and the ideal picture of what the course originally intended to provide have aggravated discontent. Now that it is an optional course, students who willingly take it are hopefully able to cherish what it has to offer.

 

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