On May 7, the Undergraduate Student Council and the Graduate Student Association jointly hosted the third Mentoring Concert in Terman Hall of the Creative Learning Building (E11). The concert was organized with the aim to invite KAIST alumni from various fields to give advice to current KAIST students on their career development.

The event consisted of three main parts: keynote speeches, mentoring sessions, and the beer party. The concert started with keynote speeches from five renowned alumni from different career fields. The alumni gave advice on career research and life in general. Then the students diverged to different career mentoring sessions, which were led by mentors of various occupations and specialities. The concert offered multiple sessions simultaneously: two sessions each for academic research, industry, law and government policies, and startup businesses; and one session each for media, culture, and consulting and services. In each session, about five alumni spoke about their own career choices and answered students’ questions about their fields. The Mentoring Concert finished with a beer party in the West-campus student cafeteria, where the participants were given the time to freely network with the mentors. Beer and pizza were provided during the party.

Although this was the third time that the Undergraduate Student Council and the Graduate Student Association hosted the Mentoring Concert, the organization committee said that they planned and organized the concert as if it were completely new, since last year’s Mentoring Concert received some complaints.

Hyewon Shin, the director of Bureau of the External Relations, said, “Last Mentoring Concert did not have enough public exposure prior to the event. Also, it targeted only the undergraduate students, and the overall preparation of the mentors was weak.” Shin added, “The biggest difference between this year’s concert and the last year’s was that we invited the alumni who just entered into society. We thought the invitation would be helpful because the students could get some insiders’ perspectives about what to prepare for to get jobs, as well as the differences between school and workplace.”