Ranking for Computer Science & Electronics in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Facts About Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university in the city of Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the South Korean government in 1971 as the country’s first research-oriented university focused on science and engineering.

KAIST has a full suite of undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs. The university does not rely on a standardized admission test when assessing potential students. Instead, its admissions committee looks at recommendation letters, overall grades with special attention on math and science grades, the personal statement and study plans of a student, and other relevant documents when deciding to accept applicants.

KAIST has five colleges namely the College of Natural Sciences; the College of Life Science and Bioengineering; the College of Engineering; the College of Liberal Arts and Convergence Science; and the College of Business. It implements an “open major system” where it allows undergraduate students to take their classes for three terms and then choose the major they would like to pursue. Students are also permitted to shift majors anytime. Examples of undergraduate degrees are Industrial Design, Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics.

Postgraduate programs are also offered in the university’s 13 graduate schools. The Graduate School of AI, for instance, offers courses on Data Mining and Search, Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning for Healthcare. Up to 80% of KAIST courses use English as their main medium of instruction.

KAIST can trace its roots back to the founding of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS) in 1971. The national government merged KAIS with the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in 1981, which led to the creation of KAIST.

The KAIST Institute (KI) is the university’s hub for inter- and multidisciplinary research. KI runs six research institutes that focus on IT Convergence, NanoCentury, Health Science and Technology, BioCentury, Robotics, and AI. It also has three centers: the Saudi Aramco-KAIST CO2 Management Center, I-Space, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Intelligence Center (FIRIC). KAIST also has partnerships with international technical universities such as the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, the Technical University of Denmark, the Technical University of Munich, and the Technical University of Berlin.

KAIST has produced notable alumni in the fields of science and technology, business, academia, and entertainment. They include female astronaut and first Korean to fly to space, Yi So-yeon; Clarivate Citation Laureate and chemistry professor, Ryoo Ryong; and South Korean singer, Kim So-jung.