The Research Fellowship Program provides the undergraduate students who have been enrolled for at least 3 semesters with the opportunities to better understand their major and gain interests in research. The participants join the research projects of their advisors, twice a year during the vacations, to perform a joint study with the graduate students of the laboratories.

We conducted an interview with Su-bin Shin (admitted at SNU in 2018, Department of Applied Biology and Chemistry) who is now in the Physiological Plant Pathology Lab at CALS for the Integrated Master’s and Doctorate Program. Su-bin applied for the Research Fellowship Program to gain laboratory experiences, and that was the began study in the Physiological Plant Pathology Lab with Professor Hokyoung Son for about 2 years. The ultimate goal is to improve the agricultural productivity by conducting genetic research on fungi, which cause a huge damage on crops and require disease-prevention measures based on molecular genetics rather than pesticides. Su-bin said that the basic experimental knowledge and methods acquired from the Research Fellowship Program helped to increase the experimental skills, design experiments, and obtain results from them without a major difficulty. Su-bin learned that it is important to gain the capabilities for not only performing experiments but also introducing them to others and to prepare the reports. Su-bin also realized that it is necessary to find logically weak points from experimental results and amend the experimental design to produce well-grounded results.

Su-bin commented that the Research Fellowship Program helped to experience what the graduate school life is like, and played a critical role in making the decision to study in the graduate school. So, Su-bin recommended all undergraduate students, regardless of the career paths they are dreaming of, to take the opportunity to obtain the experiences. Moreover, Su-bin encouraged the undergraduate students planning to go to a graduate school to participate in the Creative Research Program that allows for more autonomy. Su-bin also advised that any students interested in the programs can get the necessary information from the senior students, the official website of the graduate school, and the laboratories.