UIC in Metaverse: UIC <ONE> Festival

Freshmen orientation, MT, homeroom gatherings, dorm life, Akaraka and Yon-Ko games. For those who have experienced them, these words would bring reminiscence with wistful nostalgia for the time that will never come back. For those who never did due to the pandemic, these would be sweet yet unfulfilled promises of college life. The chasm between these two generations — pre-COVID and post-COVID — continues to grow after being deprived of the opportunities to connect with each other. Since the full-scale enforcement of social distancing, the trend has been to emulate school events such as freshmen orientation, club fair and major information sessions on a virtual platform. This semester, the student council <Unlock> pioneered a new way of running the show, inviting all Underwood International College (UIC) students to come together.

The breakthrough element of the festival was in its choice of avenue as the student council hosted the third UIC festival <ONE> through a metaverse platform, Gather Town. Metaverse refers to a fully-realized digital world beyond the analog one in which we live. Gather town, which aims to pave new ways to offer the most “interactive” online experience to the users, applies an analog 2D game-like interface to design a virtual world with avatars. This recreates a sense of space for the users, ultimately offering experiences closest to social interactions in reality.

The student council set out to best utilize the sense of space Gather town platform provides by modeling the map after the Songdo International Campus. The map, titled <UIC ONEternational Campus>, presents a detailed replica of the campus to the micro-level, including the lecture halls, streets, dormitories, and even benches. When inquired about the reason behind the decision, Yoonsang Na, the general director of the <ONE> Gather town team, explained that since the Songdo International Campus holds a special place in the hearts of many UIC students, it was the most obvious choice. Strolling around the virtual Songdo Campus would arouse dear recollections to students who experienced the so-called “Songdo Campus Life” as the majority of freshmen classes take place there. To those who never experienced Songdo, Mr. Na was confident that it would still stir hope and curiosity reserved for the future.

There was a significant influence of “Harry Potter” in promoting the festival. The student council commenced the festival a few weeks in advance with the push to “vote for your Hogwarts House,” where students would choose their Harry Potter houses for their division. The results were Underwood Division for Gryffindor, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Field division for Hufflepuff, and Integrated Science and Engineering Division for Ravenclaw. The teaser of the festival, the design of the merchandising kit, and the secret snack-giveaway events in the Chamber of Secrets within the campus all incorporated Harry Potter references. Mr. Na disclosed that besides the surface level appropriation of the house system to prompt a fun and eye-catching competition, the student council overlaid the major theme of Harry Potter, the desire to belong, as it is the foremost sentiment surging in one’s mind when one embarks on the freshmen life at Songdo campus.

Such a theme is further reinforced by UIClassroom, where students can reconvene with their homeroom classmates in virtual classrooms. Homeroom is the first community students belong to in their Yonsei life. This event offered students chances to reconnect with their peers across different admission years. Multiple UIC alumnus from diverse disciplines — including public health, medical science, software engineering, law, and performance studies — also stopped by to give short talks about their own college life and career. The talent show, where the school spirit reaches its climax, took place at the virtual stage near the entrance gate. Students were able to asynchronously watch the performances and vote for their favorites. The contest consisted of individual and club sections. For the former, the participants could either choose to perform to a designated song — such as “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman, “Memories” by Maroon 5, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, and “Onul Bamse,” the cheering anthem of Yonsei University — or songs of their own choice. For the latter, there were many notable participants such as the YONSEI Dance crew, FEVER showing off their restrained dance moves, UIC rock band Nodaji delivering its melancholic anthem, and acoustic band Cheong-Nyeon performing a sentimental ballad.

When asked about the biggest challenge in hosting the festival, Mr. Na pointed to the promotion of the festival. In the initial stages, the student council was anxious about the general interest in the festival. However, after classes were over in the afternoon, more students began gathering in the virtual campus, especially in the classrooms. While awarding the most crowded homeroom fried chickens would certainly have played a part in mustering the people, the underlying drive of the festival would be the wish to meet one’s classmates, seniors, and juniors beyond the zoom conferences. The number of simultaneous users eventually exceeded eighty, and that was the moment when Underwood International College restored its lost tradition. The feeling is bittersweet: bitter in that we cannot still gather face-to-face, sweet in that we are taking our first step in recovering the UIC network.