A new student organization with the goal of improving health conditions of KAIST students was founded this semester. Named KAITAMIN, a compound word that mixes KAIST and vitamin, the organization aims to become an essential element at KAIST, just as vitamins are to the human body. Even before its inauguration ceremony, it launched programs like the morning jogging program, dormitory health trainer program and Inbody counseling. To hear more about them, The KAIST Herald met with the president of KAITAMIN.
Can you briefly introduce yourself?
Hi, my name is Dongyun Lee and I am currently a senior majoring in Industrial & Systems Engineering. I was the president of the KAIST fitness club LINE last year and took more interest in health and fitness as I built my body.
What was the motive for founding KAITAMIN?
While I was doing assignments for my class, I realized from statistics that the current health conditions of KAIST students were poor and few measures had been taken to tackle the problem. The need for an organization dealing with overall health improvements of KAIST students seemed apparent to me. Hiring professionals and trainers would cost too much, and administrative employees and professors are already occupied with their jobs. At the same time, I have always wanted to do something for the school and its students, and health and fitness are two areas that I know well. Therefore, I started this healthcare student organization with two initiatives in mind. Of course, the foremost goal is the improvement of KAIST students’ health, while the second goal is advertising a healthy and sound image of KAIST to the public. The organization was officially approved and established on January 6, and on April 27 we will hold the inauguration ceremony.
What are KAITAMIN’s current and prospective activities?
Although only half a semester has passed since the establishment of KAITAMIN, we are running several programs without much funding from the school. The most notable one is the dormitory health trainer program that started on April 18. It is completely free and is run with the help of KAIST students who have knowledge about fitness and personal training. We also have jogging programs in the morning and it is open to all KAIST students, employees and faculty to participate. We are also supporting the Health Care Center on the anti-smoking campaign as well as Inbody graph reading and counseling. Projects that we are planning include publishing a periodical, informing KAIST members about healthy living and making web contents to possibly update on already existing KAIST mobile applications. Making an app solely for KAITAMIN would cost too much, so we are working on how we will actually put that plan into action. We are open to more ideas and will expand our activities further, but since it’s only our first semester since the establishment, the goal for now is to successfully run the programs that we have in place.
Some of KAITAMIN’s activities possibly overlap with activities of existing clubs. Isn’t this causing a problem?
Yes, some of the activities that we are running and are planning on might overlap with those of existing sports clubs. However, KAITAMIN covers a wider range of interests because it is neither confined to deal with a particular sport nor is it focused on establishing intimate bonds between the members of KAITAMIN. We aim to serve and volunteer for the students at KAIST, and we are concerned about their health. That is why the activities we plan and run include a health periodical publication, Inbody graph counseling, the anti-smoking campaign and the anti-drinking campaign. Because we are a student organization, we are able to carry out programs that are hard to do if it were a club. The dormitory health trainer program is an example of a program I wanted to start while I was the president of LINE, but failed to do so due to the limitations that clubs are bound to have. At the same time, we respect other sports clubs and refrain from starting any activities that might obviously overlap with theirs. That is why we will not open soccer classes or basketball classes, for example.
Do you have anything else to say to the students?
KAITAMIN is a student organization working for the betterment of the students’ health. As knowledgeable persons in the field of health and fitness, we KITAIN members will help you obtain essential information and build a sound body. In the process, I am sure that it would also have positive effects on general school life as well. We await your participation.