It will become possible to obtain a doctoral degree within seven years after entering the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) as an undergraduate student.
KAIST announced on the 12th that it will introduce a tentative ‘3+4 TUBE Program’ (hereinafter referred to as TUBE) as early as next year. The name TUBE signifies the linkage between the undergraduate program and the integrated master's and doctoral program to cultivate doctors in their 20s.
This program is designed as a model to obtain a doctoral degree in seven years, presenting a fast track career path that allows students to grow and develop into doctoral-level researchers in the shortest time possible.
Students who have completed gifted education courses at science high schools or specialized science academies and enter KAIST at the age of 18 can participate in the program if they achieve top grades after completing three or four semesters of the undergraduate program. KAIST students who are not from science high schools or gifted academies can also benefit from the TUBE program.
Selected students will receive special management, including assignment of a close supervising professor, enabling them to obtain a doctoral degree as early as age 24. In the first year of the linked program, which corresponds to the third year of undergraduate studies, students are granted the right to freely take graduate-level courses, unlike the existing system. The credits earned will count both toward the undergraduate graduation requirements and as graduate-level credits for the corresponding courses.
Most importantly, KAIST explains that students can belong to graduate research labs to perform basic research activities and quickly fulfill additional requirements for doctoral admission according to departmental standards.
Students who go through this process can immediately proceed to the integrated master's and doctoral degree program after obtaining their bachelor's degree. For male students who have not completed military service, it is possible to transfer to a specialized research personnel status in the third year of the doctoral program, allowing them to complete both their doctoral degree and military service in their mid-20s and actively engage in science and technology fields such as startups, employment, and postdoctoral research. This is also considered a strength of the TUBE program.
KAIST plans to conduct the selection process starting next year, focusing on departments that wish to introduce the TUBE program, and to officially operate the linked program from 2025. Yonghyun Kim, Director of Admissions at KAIST, said, “Just as the famous physicists Oppenheimer and Feynman obtained their doctoral degrees at ages 23 and 24 respectively, KAIST has now opened the path to produce 24-year-old PhDs through ‘K-Science Gifted Education.’”
Dohun Lee, Director of Academic Affairs at KAIST, stated, “The TUBE program will open a new horizon for rapidly nurturing excellent science and technology talents with interest and aptitude for research into researchers without complicated procedures in an era of declining school-age population.”
Other universities in Korea also operate linked programs aimed at shortening the degree completion period to allow outstanding students to enter advanced courses early. However, the KAIST TUBE program differs from other universities in that the completion of the undergraduate program and entry into the doctoral program occur simultaneously in the first year of the linked program.
Above all, KAIST expects that if students who have completed basic university courses through advanced placement systems such as the Advanced Placement (AP) in gifted education programs participate in the TUBE program, the effectiveness of the advanced credit acquisition system will also increase.
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