Hyundai Steel encourages kids to dream big

Hyundai Steel hosted the H Science Academy Camp at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist) in Daejeon from Jan. 25 to 30.

The camp was organized to foster teenagers’ interest in science and engineering by offering classes in both theory and practical application.

Hyundai Steel invited employees’ children and their friends to the camp as part of their Employee Encouragement Project. One hundred and sixty students took part in the camp, half of whom were in middle school and half in high school. For each group of 10 participants, one Kaist student served as a mentor during three days of the program.

“This project was initially devised while we were searching for activities to help employees,” said Ko Sun-Jung, manager of the Hyundai Steel corporate social responsibility team. “We felt teenagers don’t ‘dream’ these days and how the problem is becoming social more than personal. This is why we planned a camp that would boost teenagers’ hopes for the future.”

As a program aimed at motivating teenagers and helping them establish a concrete career plan, the H Science Academy Camp’s last day included speeches by Kaist students. They shared study tips and personal stories about how hard they had worked during their teenage days. The session finished with the lecturer emphasizing that the way to change one’s life is through “challenges,” which entail using time in a different way, changing locations and meeting new people.