[SKKUZINE] Interview with Prof. Woo of Global Biomedical Engineering
- 성균융합원
- Hit3118
- 2018-06-28
'Travel to find oneself’
Prof. Woo interviewed about the way to become a convergent talent.
I have a peculiar history even though I think. I majored in biology at the undergraduate school, became a clinical psychologist after clinical psychology at the time of my master 's course, then psychiatric training, and studied cognitive psychology and cognitive science at the time of my doctor. Currently, he is professor of "engineering college" in Global Biomedical Engineering.
What I do every day is computer programming and data science. When I finished my Ph.D. in Korea and went to Korea to study, I was fortunate to have a "convergence type" department and a concept of "convergent talent" was created and appreciated positively.
When I was an undergraduate, graduate student, I never imagined these things. Rather, I was constantly changing my academic field, and sometimes I and my family were struggling, and I decided to give up a definite future. Today, I would like to talk about how I became a so-called "convergent talent" centered on the episodes I experienced during my doctoral course, what difficulties it had in the process, and how the process met my journey .
It was not a difficult choice to graduate from the Department of Life Science and start studying psychology from the time of my master's degree. I have been interested in people since I was in high school and I felt much rewarding when I talked to my friends. I was fascinated by the fact that I could help someone while listening to and giving advice to my college students, and I was interested in understanding and analyzing people's behavior and mental state.
I would like to experience a variety of people. After deliberately choosing the most common army active army and going to the army, I want to do my whole life with the conclusion that "to help people change" and then contact the professor of clinical psychology without hesitation. I came to graduate school and realized that even though I was interested in people and liked conversation, I was basically a science. In psychology, interest in experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, and quantitative psychology, which emphasize experiments and data, has started to become more and more important. "Clinical" which can actually help people, "Cognition" which emphasizes experimental and biological approach, I wanted to do something that combined.
After three years of experience in psychiatry, I have had more than 300 patients to experience psychological evaluation and interview. I also got a clinical psychology specialist certificate. However, I want to study mental phenomena and problems through experiments and neuroscience. It has grown. So I decided to study abroad. In Korea, at that time, there were few places where we could study these fields in a convergent way.
In preparation for studying abroad, I applied to several graduate schools. Among them, Colorado Boulder College, famous for its cognitive neuroscience, was one of my favorite places to go. I asked the school to get clinical psychology and cognitive psychology at the same time. Of course, there was a belief in outside scholarships, so it would have been difficult to allow foreign students with English as a second language to admit such a course, which was unprecedented in the department.
After a long negotiation, the school was allowed to admit such conditions, and I started my Ph.D. I used fMRI to study and work hard in a well-known laboratory that explored human cognition and emotion, and that alone was not enough time. However, in the Clinical Psychology major, I had to take a psychology course to meet the client directly from the second grade, and I started to get bad evaluation in the psychotherapy with the client due to cultural difference and lack of English communication ability.
Some professors and staff in clinical psychology who were nervous began to complain that I did not do my best in clinical activities because I majored in cognitive psychology at the same. I did my best in clinic training with more time and effort, but it was not enough to turn the professors who were already dissatisfied, and when I finished my second year of doctoral course, I decided to "stop studying for the next year and concentrate on clinical training" Was notified. If you do not quit your studies, you have to stop clinical psychology. In short, there has been a situation in which we have to choose either research or clinical.
The alternative situation is indeed a question, "What do you really want?" Stopping a clinical psychology degree meant to change my major, even though it was in psychology, and to abandon being a professor of clinical psychology that I had dreamed of. In the field of cognitive psychology, it was unclear to accept me with a history of clinical psychology. For these reasons, it was not easy to give up your clinical psychology degree in the future. Conversely, studying the human mind through the brain was one thing I wanted so much and was one of the most important goals of studying abroad.
At that time, I had been married about five years and had two children. I thought it was not right to choose an uncertain future in order to do what I want as a head of the family who struggles with my life without money and time. I finally came to the idea that I should stop studying. In a conversation with a professor, he advised him that he would seriously ask himself what he really wants in a similar way and chose the path, and that the choice might seem unsettling in the short term but could lead to better opportunities in the long run I did.
My wife asked me, "What would you like to be the happiest when you live with the rest of your life?" And told her that she would be happy even if she did not become a professor. I still have tears when I think about this moment. I told this to Professor Tor Wager, my supervisor, and I remember remembering to write down.
I chose the study and gave up my clinical psychology degree. I worked fiercely to not let this choice be a selfish choice for my happiness, and not to disappoint my wife and family who supported me, and I published a lot of papers. Upon graduation, I started to take a place in Korea. I had to come back to Korea as soon as possible so that my wife could continue my career.
Thankfully, Sungkyunkwan University's Global Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience Imaging Research Center has appreciated the possibility of me who did not complete the scholarship completely, and I came to Korea with a positive view of my various academic backgrounds.
Our department is a truly fusion department. There are professors in a wide variety of disciplines. But more important than convergence is that everyone is doing the research they want to do best. Especially in my case, when I looked for what I really wanted to do and even happiness in my life, I had a more interdisciplinary and convergent background. As I said earlier, it would have been an impossible choice without the support of the family.
During your college life, you also need to ask yourself, "What do I really want?" It is not a goal to be a convergent talent, but it is one message that I would like to share with you in this article.
If you are interested in our laboratory, please visit [http://cocoanlab.github.io] As you can see, convergent talents with diverse backgrounds such as medicine, psychology, biology, electrical and electronics, and computer science are gathering together to look into the human mind through the brain. Thank you.