Many years ago, I had an opportunity to interview a successful semiconductor engineer in South Korea. During the interview, I asked him why he chose to major in materials science and engineering in the first place. To my surprise, he began to talk about his family history. His father was a member of the Progressive Party, a short-lived socialist party in South Korea, during the 1950s. When it was time for his son to choose his major in the mid-1970s, the father insisted on engineering, arguing that it was the “farthest from politics.” The father wanted his son to lead a stable and prosperous life, to be insulated as much as possible from the uncertainties of political upheavals. The son followed his father’s wishes, and after graduation, he studied and worked in the United States, before returning home in the mid-1990s as a professor at one of the leading engineering schools in Korea. He contributed to the growth of the Korean semiconductor industry through his research and teaching, training dozens of high-profile engineers who now work across academia and industry.
