Wetskills-South-Korea

Wrap up the Wetskills

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Khawon Lee (Sangmyung University -    Can you remember the first day of Wetskills? It’s kind of awkward when we met at first at least for me. Maybe someone was nervous, others were exciting. [caption id="attachment_56235" align="alignnone" width="300"] First day[/caption]   We had tough weeks, but also, we had fun. Sometimes we had hard works, but looking backward, it was helpful to us. It was great that we worked first and hung out together on free time.     I tried to hang out as much as I can and teach some Korean things to others, but I’m not sure it worked. Hope it worked! Haha In Daegu, I think moments in Daegu were parties. Even if the purpose of visiting Daegu is for Wetskills final and KIWW, I tried to hang out with people as much as I can.   We ate Korean barbeque, pork belly, Korean traditional meal and gorgeous buffet.     At first, when I...

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Looking back over the last two weeks

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Kyutae Kim (University of Twente) -    Short but so intense two weeks has been passed. Due to the hurricane in South Korea, my flight has been delayed. On the way to the Amsterdam in flight, I was looking all pictures we took during the 2 weeks.   I am a Korean but I am studying civil engineering in the Netherlands. I found out that a Wetskills program will be in S.Korea so I applied. We had first meeting at around KIST and we went on excursions to Shiwha lake tidal power station and Gyeongin Ara Waterway. It was awkward at first moment, but we quickly became close each other with the Dutch open mind.   While I am studying in the Netherlands, I always tried to get into the Dutch friends and culture, but I never imagined that Dutch friends got into Korean friends and Korean culture. But this Wetskills...

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Wetskills: such an experience

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Roel Hunting (Waterschap Rijn en IJssel) -    If you asked me what I knew about South Korea prior to Wetskills, that could be counted in one hand at most. Of course, Guus Hiddink belongs to that list. But also, the past Olympic Winter Games. After Wetskills I could write a book about it, but for the sake of convenience I will only stick to a shorter version: this blog. Then why a book? Because so many different stories and experiences richer. But what I will remember most about South Korea itself is the friendliness and hospitality of the people. It felt like home. I really enjoyed that feeling.   Because so much has happened, we can mirror ourselves metaphorically to LingLing (typhoon) who was approaching last Saturday. In a very short time we came together just like a typhoon at the Welcomes dinner on Sunday, joined forces and...

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Happy Tears and Wetskills

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Berkay Umut Yesildagli (Korea Institute of Science and Technology)    Wetskills is a journey. A psychical test which requires you to wake up every day and work for hours on topics that you have no idea about with people you just met. They can be Dutch people, straight forward and continuing. You will have Korean people too in your team. They will go under the radar and suddenly bring up amazing information. Wetskills will be a mental journey as well. You will be getting tested by other people's perception, their ideas, hardships of teamwork. You will be annoyed so much sometimes that you won't notice other people will be annoyed by you as well.   But you will keep going. You will wake up every morning and you will find yourself in a passionate worry. You will be having fun every time you find something that will help your...

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It’s finals day!

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Pleun Weijers (Waterschap Limburg) -    Time flies when thinking out-of-the-box! Today was the last day of our program, which we spent at the Korea International Water Week 2019 in Daegu to present the case studies we have been working on for the past two weeks. We had a very early start and a hasty breakfast, but we were all excited to pitch our solutions.   We arrived at the conference in the morning, where we had time for some badly needed coffee and a last round of practice (repetition is key to success, right Berkay?). Having displayed our posters, we sat down in the room where the Wetskills presentations were to take place.   After some words of welcome and a lovely surprise video about our adventures so far, it was finally up to us. In front of a big audience, we delivered our pitches and answered questions from the...

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I can’t believe it’s already the last night!

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Hyeonmin Lee (Seoul National University) -    In the morning, we attended to World Water Cities Forum. Before it starts, we watched sand-art performance. I think it’s 3rd time we all watched some kinds of performance. I don’t know that we Korean love performances that much. Next, we heard about the water problem each city has faced now (I don’t know the exact number of cities), and it was quite interesting that every city has different problem and different point of view.                 As I’m first pitcher, I went to entrance 2 and all first pitcher and back-up pitcher gathered there to practice. I practiced with GyuTae again and again. Even though I had practiced it more than 20 times, I made some mistakes. So, I talked to myself, “stay nervous”. Because as Inge and Roel always says, “feeling nervous is good thing”.   And I gave a pitch to Inge...

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First day of conference!

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Eveline van Groesen (Water Authority Brabantse Delta) -      Last night was deadline night. So, when we arrived at our hostel in Daegu everbody quickly put their luggage in their rooms and opened their laptops. Some stressed, some busy, some relaxed. But by 21.00 o’clock [caption id="attachment_56099" align="alignright" width="300"] Girls night with Korean BBQ[/caption] it was done: every team submitted their poster and paper. Time to celebrate! And that is what we did! We had a nice BBQ with all the girls and went for a few drinks afterwards with the guys. A few drinks, became some more drinks and even more drinks. We celebrated our deadline night well...

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Ready to go KIWW

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Seungyeon Lee (Hongik University) -   Today is the day to leave for Daegu to attend the KIWW. We gathered at KIST in the morning to revise the posters and papers for the last time. Once again, I revised the poster, read the paper and added the contents. After that, we went to Seoul Station to go to Daegu. It was already 6 p.m. in Daegu, which arrived by train for 4 hours. We immediately moved to the hostel to sort out our luggage and finally reviewed our posters and papers.     Also, don't release the tension until it's over. When we submitted the poster, we resized the layers with 15 minutes left to resize because it didn't fit. Helen and I have succeeded in correcting and submitting it, holding our minds together in order to be quick and accurate!     Finally, in recent weeks, everything we care about has...

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D-Day of Wetskills 2019

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Muhammad Yacub (Kumoh National Institute of Technology)-   It was the day of deadline Wetskills-South Korea 2019. D-days are always hard for army or any team who works on a specific task. I personally believe that “Goals are dreams with deadlines” therefore, I can work better under pressure to meet deadlines. It was Monday morning I woke up early got ready and joined my team on time in community lounge. Wetskills management team opened the day as usual with an announcement of pitch and poster submission deadline time 2.00pm. Afterwards, we started discussion regarding our poster and pitch. I started work on poster after explaining technical things about the case study to our team mates who then started practice for pitch presentation. Every group was looking bit nervous about pitch and some of us also had to rehearse our pitches with focus on their contents, posture, and hand...

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Sunday-The day of rest….right?

Wetskills South Korea 2019 -  by Charlotte Casey- Haden (Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier)    [caption id="attachment_56047" align="alignright" width="300"] Work, work, work![/caption] Sunday started like any other Wetskills day, all be it a little later for most teams, what with it being a weekend and all. But it was by no means a day of rest, as teams were feverishly working away on their pitches, papers and posters as the ever present deadline looms closer!   But it wasn't all work, work, work, as Floor and Inge introduced a game to get us to have some fun, Crazy 88. Initially there were startled looks, mostly from me as I tried to calculate this in to our already busy team time plan. But Berkay took no hesitation in being our team's (team 1) advocate, snapping away taking as many photos for the 88 tasks that had been assigned to us, which really were crazy by the way, being as...

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