[Developer, Graduate School] 4. 1-Month Review of the 2nd Semester of the 1st Year

The first semester started on September 4th, and a month has passed.

Due to COVID-19, I haven't been able to go to school yet, and I'm taking classes online and through recorded lectures, so it doesn't feel real yet. Today, I'll share my thoughts after the first month of the semester?

Personally, the difference in the teaching method compared to my undergraduate days is the learner-centered approach. During my undergraduate years, the method was to explain the content in the textbook and then understand and study that content. However, in graduate school, the classes are conducted through discussions where we each present our opinions after setting a topic, and through the method of creating presentation materials through research and presenting them, followed by feedback from the professor. That's why, although there is a textbook, it's not used very frequently.

And since it's the first semester, they explain paper reviews and paper writing methods, and they also teach how to utilize external materials like newspaper articles.

To summarize the above,

• An environment where you choose a topic and study independently.
• There are many instances where you need to prepare reports or presentation materials.
• Often utilize external materials like papers, articles, and research data.
  
  That's about it.

And because it's a specialized graduate school, there's a definite difference compared to the general graduate schools where students attend full-time.

Since I work on weekdays and only attend classes on weekends, it seems that the evaluations and classes generally consider working adults. When looking at general graduate school reviews, you see things like 'lab hell' and 'research hell', but in specialized graduate schools, the workload is limited to class discussions, individual study, and preparing reports and presentation materials, so it's manageable alongside a job. (Of course, it's only been a month, so I don't know what will happen in the future.)

My goal for now is to become familiar with research papers!

Since research papers are a type of document I'm not very used to, I think I need to get more exposure to them, including how to search for them and review them.

Although it's still next year, I'm thinking of deciding on a research topic early and organizing related papers.

Anyway, the midterm exam is only a month away, and I'm completely lost about how to prepare for it ㅠ_ㅠ (I haven't even been to school yet... haha.....)