In general, the program is good, but it is research-oriented. This means that the main focus will be on your research and your life will depend on the lab you will be assigned to. There are various courses, but usually, professors don’t pressure graduate students as they say that the main goal of a graduate student is doing research. And as it is an Asian country, in some labs workload and expected working hours can be crazy. So I would recommend choosing your lab wisely and asking people around about the professor and lab atmosphere, because you will spend most of your time here (you have working hours like from 9 am till 6 pm). The international community might not be as big as in the US, but it’s becoming better. I enjoy my social life here a lot. And if you like living in busy cities, Daejeon might not be your option, it’s mostly very chill.

The best thing about KAIST is academic freedom: you make your own schedule and you are free to change departments and double major. I am double majoring with CS and it is a great choice to have opportunities both in academia and industry. Research is also strong. Competition is too tough and you usually can forget about your life for the 4 months during the semester. But I did learn a lot, and given generous financial aid (0 tuition and about 300 USD monthly allowance plus part time job opportunities), it’s more than I could realistically ask for or expect. You won’t regret it, but my advice is to play it safe and do something in CS related anyway, since it’s hard to find a job in other fields right after graduation

From the very beginning of the first semester at KAIST I enjoyed all the programs that were designed to help students in assimilating to the new environment, culture and education program. There were plenty of programs aimed to help us ease the tension of such intensive studying and get to know our batchmates more closely even though the semester was held in an online format. I loved being able to communicate with professors and TAs any time I had questions or simply wanted some guidance for the assignments.
However, despite all this great experience, there were some confusing moments with the grading of some of the courses. Primarily, these are the humanity courses that are graded not as objectively as they could be. Apart from that, high competition for certain courses did not allow me to take the classes I planned to register for.
With little experience of studying at KAIST, I cannot elaborate more to provide a full-fledged answer to the question, yet it is certain that I would highly recommend people to experience the student life at this university.

This was my first time studying abroad as I was born and raised in Kazakhstan. Coming to KAIST as an undergraduate student was a good experience that made me maturate quickly as I was apart from my family in a new country where people don’t speak English. KAIST is a tough school with programs in natural sciences and strong engineering fields. If you wish to major in liberal arts, skip this one as KAIST is mainly a research institute rather than a normal Korean university as many Koreans themselves refer to it. The professors are great researchers but not always talented instructors. Though I had a great opportunity to take classes from amazing professors who inspired me to study bio hardly and with all my heart. Still, don’t expect much from them, sometimes you would need to study material yourself by reading a textbook or watching extra web material. The competition is high, and most of the students are extremely hard-working. You would see people studying in the library for several hours non-stop every day. This environment is quite depressive but it motivates you a lot as well. You should be a very diligent student who can learn quickly to have high grades as most of the other students are Koreans who were top students in their high schools. Though if you survive this academic hell, you’ll be grateful as the employment opportunities for KAIST students in Korea are very high because the school is the most prestigious STEM institution in Korea so you can go to big corporations like Samsung or LG. Talking about social life, for some people it sucks as most of the students in STEM have poor communication skills so it’s hard for them to socialize but if you put more effort or if you’re more of an extrovert, it’s not an impossible thing to do. I have many international friends along with Korean friends. Though, it’s still hard to make close Korean friends as they are not willing to open up even to each other. The school facilities are great, you can have everything on campus which is so beautiful with the natural landscape. If you would like to become a researcher, or engineer and wish to try new culture, language, and lifestyle, KAIST is definitely worth trying. Just be prepared to be always challenged!