Since this September, the Central Steering Committee of the KAIST Graduate Student Association (GSA) has been running a “Culture Bus” to improve the quality of KAIST’s student welfare. KAIST students, who often have little chance to enjoy cultural benefits, can easily hop onto the Culture Bus and travel to interesting places with friends on weekends.
The project started this May when GSA reported how tedious the graduate students’ life was during the meeting with President Nam Pyo Suh. The administration informed GSA that they were planning to purchase two school buses for students traveling to Seoul during weekends. GSA suggested that one of the buses could be used as the Culture Bus instead.
In September, the Culture Bus operated on a trial basis. An online reservation system (http://gsa.kaist.ac.kr/bus) was developed for the convenience of the students. Previous trips included Jeonju Hanok Village, Everland, Anmyeondo, Jirisan, and Namisum. On their trip, the students participated in a variety of festivals and enjoyed local cuisines. GSA extended the program after receiving many positive feedbacks from the participants.
GSA wants students to participate in selecting destinations for the Culture Bus in the future. For instance, they recently held an event where students can recommend their favorite famous restaurants and receive small gifts upon selection. More information can be found on their Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/kaistbus). In the end, GSA hopes that the Culture Bus can be a regular special event for KAIST students.
GSA is working on other projects to improve graduate students’ quality of life as well. For instance, they recently launched the Life Style Research Institute and created a blog (http://kaistlife.blogspot.kr). The institute was established to conduct numerous surveys on graduate students’ daily life, collect the data, and come up with necessary projects for improvement on a regular basis. Such survey subjects include break areas, hobbies, and sports. The result’s credibility is quite high considering that about 150-250 students participated in the survey. More interesting projects are expected to launch in the future.