The Department of Computer Science at College of Electrical and Computer Engineering held English Leadership Camp for this academic year which is a joint effort by four universities, namely, Chungbuk National University, Korea National University of Transportation, Korea National University of Education, Pai Chai University. Through the English Leadership Camp, it is aimed to blend English language teaching and foster potential future leaders with communication skills that are vital in the era of globalization in 21st century. This is an ongoing yearly camp that traditionally culminates in an event of overseas volunteering activity that participants join to perform a series of lectures and seminars to developing country students. Participants of the overseas volunteering activity were selected based on their merit from a list of applicants and therefore appear to be highly competitive and motivated students.

 

This year overseas volunteering event was held January 21-30 in joint cooperation with the National University of Uzbekistan which is a top university in the field of natural sciences in Uzbekistan. Following orientation in Chungbuk National University, after arrival in Uzbekistan volunteers taught foundations of web design and programming to students of the National University of Uzbekistan during a week-long period. Mornings were lectures and evenings were teamwork time which was followed by sightseeing visits to places in Tashkent and cultural evenings. Korean and Uzbek students enjoyed equally classroom and outside activities that took place during this period. Lectures covered topics from basic HTML and CSS to more advanced JavaScript and dynamic web page creation techniques. Each volunteer student was teamed with three Uzbek students and worked on a final project everyday afternoon to be presented to a jury of professors at the end of the training.

 

The event culminated when three teams were selected for the first, second, and third places. The first place winning “Brainstormers” literally stormed the audience with their fantastic presentation skills and cleverly written website which also had an Android App developed. At the same time, “Dream Team” members impressed the jury of professors with their well-thought-out content-rich website which promotes Korean and Uzbek language. The website has various features such as a dictionary, audio, video, quizzes, cultural, and many other sections in both languages targeted for bi-directional educational effect for language learners of both languages. Finally, the team winning the third place presented their “Happy Math” named project with math-rich content aimed at teaching the subject to kids and elementary school students. Great were the projects and so were prizes starting from Galaxy Gear S3 for first place, Galaxy Tab A6, and Samsung Gear for second and third places.

 

Of course, the volunteering visit is also an opportunity to promote cultural exchange which is why Korean students visited places of cultural importance every evening during their stay in Tashkent. They have visited Amir Temur Museum and Square, Minor Mosque, Monument of Courage, and many other places with plenty of Uzbek restaurants to taste the local food. During the weekend, the visit was paid to the Samarkand via high-speed KTX like Afrosiyob train which enabled departure and arrival within the same day. Samarkand is a historical city of Uzbekistan similar to Gyeongju in Korea with lots of places of historical and cultural importance. Overall, the trip was very interesting and full of experience which is why most of the students felt they would stay more days if possible.