I have looked for an international research internship program since I decided to go to master’s course in life science because I was keen to participate in research overseas. I had several purposes for that. One is meeting superior researchers in foreign countries and knowing their attitude toward research. The other one is that feeling difference between them and Japan and getting a broad perspective. At this point, Campus Asia program was very attractive to me. I expected that all the new experiences in this program would be very useful and valuable in my life, and now, I can make sure that is right.

In this program, I belonged to the synaptic brain dysfunction laboratory and joined research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) model mice following a master’s degree student in the laboratory. They are trying to investigate what molecular dysfunction causes ASD phenotype and how it happened. I focused on one of the ASD risk genes, Dlg2, which is a postsynaptic scaffold protein. It is shown that the DLG2 protein-deficient causes ASD phenotype, so we tried to investigate the molecular role of that protein by seeing its localization in primary cultured neurons.  It was the first time for me to culture primary neurons, so it was an exciting and useful experience for me. Since I’m considering to conducting neuron culturing in my research project for master’s degree, it gave me some ideas to do that. Other than that, I participated in several experiments such as genotyping of transgenic mice, immunohistochemistry of the mice brain slice, and analysis of single cell-RNA sequencing data. In addition, I joined the lab meeting once a week and some lectures which my mentor took, and my mentor also taught me basic knowledge about electrophysiology or other behavior experiments. I didn’t have a deep insight into neuroscience before, so I could learn a lot of new things by spending time in this lab. On the other hand, since my lab in Japan is researching on the ASD field, some experiment was familiar to me. However, some protocols are a little different, so I could compare each of the methods and get to know the better way to do that.

Other than the scientific experience, I could get a lot of things. Before I came here, I know little about Korea, but through the experiences such as having a chat with lab members, taking the language class, and having a day trip, I could deeply understand Korean culture. Discussing about the difference between Korea and Japanese was very interesting to me. Because my mentor knew very well about Japan (even he had an experience to visit TokyoTech), we talked a lot about that and enjoyed it. While I found many differences between Korea and Japan, I noticed that there are some similarities. I was glad to know that some Koreans have much interesting or favor in Japan. I thought that there is no border between youngers even though their home country differs.

The most I liked about this program is reassuring support by coordinator, buddy, and staffs. Thanks to them, I could really enjoy this opportunity without little anxiety and inconvenience. It could be more hard experience to live in foreign country without their help. I could get used to staying KAIST easily and smoothly because of the kind introduction, and some fun activities made this program more wonderful.

In addition, I like KAIST itself so much. The campus is quite large, and it has a lot of cafeterias and café. There are so many attractive laboratories that have great facilities and excellent professors. Moreover, KAIST students are all kind and nice. They are diligent and talented, stimulating me a lot. Seeing their work, I was encouraged and motivated so much. I found that most of the KAIST students who engage in natural biological science are in the master and doctor-integrated course. I’m in my two minds about whether I get PhD or a job after getting a master’s degree so far, but I became to think about getting PhD positively, influenced by them. Besides, their English speaking skill and presentation skill are very good, which encouraged me to practice them more. I often struggled to tell what I want to say to other people in English during this program and felt frustrated. I will make an effort to speak English more fluently.

Lastly, joining this program changed my mind to have more interest in the world. I found that I knew only a small part of the world, making me have more wish to go to other countries. I would like to know more about foreign countries and meet various kinds of people. This experience broadened my eyes and influenced my thinking a lot. Although I’m still feeling a month is too short to be satisfied, I’m sincerely glad to participate in this program. I would like to research harder with the experience I could only get here.