Kathrine

Thank you for joining me today. To start, would you mind introducing yourself and your field of study?

Junwoo

Great, my name is Joon. I am from South Korea and I recently graduated from Stanford studying neuroscience and English literature.

Kathrine

Oh cool. So how would you explain symbolic systems or neuroscience to someone who's never heard of it before?

Junwoo

Yeah, you have to do that a lot. Symbolic is essentially an interdisciplinary major between computer science, psychology, math, philosophy, and linguistics. And after studying the intersection of those fields, you end up choosing a track.

And that often becomes either artificial intelligence or human-computer interaction, things of that nature. But for my end, I chose neuroscience studying the science of the brain and how it functions. Yes.

Kathrine

Cool. So what made you choose this field instead of studying only one of the individual subjects?

Junwoo

Well, to be completely frank, I wanted to study neuroscience and once I got accepted to Stanford, that was the only neuroscience-ish field or major that was available at Stanford. So I did have a lecture for that. But I also was interested in how on a programming level, on a scientific level, on a humanities level, how our brain can be understood.

So I thought symbolic systems was a good kind of leeway for that. Yeah.

Kathrine

So what kind of careers or research areas could symbolic systems lead towards?

Junwoo

It could really lead to anything. For me, I did a lot of research on studying autism and neurodiversity-related areas. But at the same time, it could lead to anything from bioengineering to linguistics to, I mean, CS research as well, math research even.

I've had peers in my lab, co-workers work on applying mathematics as well. So although they were within the range of symbolic systems, I don't think the range is quite limited, but it just depends on your interest.

Kathrine

Cool. So was there a specific class, project, camp, or other experience that first sparked your interest in neuroscience?

Junwoo

Was there a project? Yes. So in high school, I worked as a theatre actor on a professional level in South Korea.

And then I really fell in love with it. I still work in filmmaking because of that experience and because of that interest. And I really wanted to understand the human brain on a scientific level, because I thought that was going to help in interpreting characters and creating characters and things like that and being able to decipher how a character would behave as an actor.

So that was my original spark of interest. Yes.

Kathrine

So can you walk me through your path into your current field, starting from high school? For example, were there high school classes that influenced you the most?

Junwoo

I think my theatre class in high school, I took the IB program and I was in DP Theatre, HL. And then my teacher influenced me significantly in that she really worked hard for us. She taught what endurance and being diligent means.

And then she taught us a lot about how to create truly great work from our hands. And so more than anything, she taught us work ethic, and she taught us how to interact with the craft of the arts. And so that had been something very rewarding.

And that really, really allowed us to develop our interest further and motivated us. Yeah.

Kathrine

Next, can you describe a specific major-related project or problem you've worked on or are working on?

Junwoo

Major-related. I mean, that depends on how you define it, in my opinion. But I would say right now I'm working on neurodiversity projects with my lab at Stanford.

So I still work remotely on a lab, although I've graduated. I mean, I'm based in Korea right now. So yeah, I mean, so we're working on kind of hosting workshops that educate the public on neurodiversity, understanding how, and we're making programs to schools and the shelters and support programs, educating the public on how to interact with neurodivergent individuals and raising awareness on what actually entails and then how to foster fair and warm and equal interaction modes.

And we're doing also research on resolving, not resolving, how to say, how to make neurodivergent individual interactions and conversations more comfortable in terms of coming up with either therapy methods or some, there are some drug interventions that we are trying to come up with on a chemical level, but that's less of an interest of the lab, although we do work on it, but more so on the program and raising awareness for now.

Yeah.

Kathrine

Would you say your day-to-day work is more technical, theoretical, human-centered, or like a mixture of those?

Junwoo

It's always mixture. Lab work, as you may know, is always a mix, but we try to make it human-centered as much as possible, but sometimes it does get technical a little bit, but day-to-day it becomes obviously different.

Kathrine

Next, instead of describing your field generally, could you walk me through a real day in your life at the current job that you're doing?

Junwoo

My real day in my life? Well, as I said, I have an interdisciplinary life in that I work in both the arts and in lab settings, so I would say, and I also reside in South Korea, so time zone becomes different, so that's another thing that affects our, it affects my day-to-day life, but I'll say I'll spend my first half of the day from the morning, like right now, to around one or two, which is in California around the night.

I spend that working on the labs and kind of working on my data collection and data organization and talking with my lab co-workers on Slack and my professor himself as well, and then my latter half of the day from afternoon to evening I work on filmmaking, so that's been the balance I've been trying to foster.

Kathrine

Is that filmmaking something that you're pursuing on the side or is it directly related to your major?

Junwoo

It's not directly related to my major, but it is my passion, and I'm equally passionate in neuroscience as well, so I've been working on both things at the same time.

Kathrine

That's really cool. Next, what is something that people often misunderstand about your field?

Junwoo

I think the biggest thing is that people think neuroscience slash symbiosis at Stanford is mostly just pursuing science and just pursuing scientific rigor and understanding everything in biology and chemistry context, but it really isn't. Neuroscience is about, it's a lot more humanities-based than what people think. There is scientific rigor and you have to have a really solid, if anything, advanced understanding of the sciences on chemistry especially, and biology and psychology, but I also don't think you can't eliminate the factor that human interaction and empathy and community building are aspects that neuroscience cannot ignore and has to be embraced, so that's something that I think people often overlook.

Kathrine

Next, what barriers do you think students face when they're trying to enter STEM in general?

Junwoo

Enter STEM?

Kathrine

Yeah.

Junwoo

I think nowadays, attention span. In 2026, getting students to pay attention to complex materials for an extended period of time is getting harder and harder, and because the question is STEM, it could really be anything, but it's really important to engage with complex materials that you may not understand deeply on a consistent level for you to have an advantageous understanding of something, but I feel like a lot of students want to take the shortcut these days inevitably due to a lot of different factors obviously, so that's the biggest barrier in my opinion.

Kathrine

If you could go back, what advice would you give to your ninth grade self?

Junwoo

My ninth grade self? I would say do what you're doing, but also don't be too anxious. I remember being so stressed out about really minor things that in the long run didn't really matter, but I thought being perfectionist was going to resolve anything, but that really isn't true.

If anything, giving yourself room to fail. It's not even failing. Giving yourself room to think freely, consider different options, and try new things.

If anything makes an individual really truly great in my opinion, that honestly I think separates someone who's just diligent and good, which are valid traits, don't get me wrong, but someone who's truly great and creative and unique really allows yourself to explore, and then I still struggle with that to be honest with you, but I still try, right, and I think that's the point, and then even for my ninth grade self, I would tell him to don't pressure yourself, don't choke yourself under pressure in a way, but just be able to freely explore new options, and it's okay if you don't do so well on that, because in the end you're going to learn something even more valuable from that experience.

Kathrine

Is there anything you wish you had tried or any skill you wish you had learned earlier?

Junwoo

By the way, do my responses have to be related to neuroscience, like is your project about that?

Kathrine

No, they don't have to be.

Junwoo

Okay, it's just my pure interest, but I wish I could have picked up a few more languages. Right now I'm learning French, just as a hobby, like there's no need career-wise to master French for me, but I just wanted to learn it, but it's just much harder when you're in your 20s than when you're in your teens, right, and then it's getting much harder if I'm in my 30s and 40s and 50s, so today is the youngest day I'll be living, so I still try, but I just figure it would have been much easier if I just learned it when I was younger, so yeah.

Kathrine

And what would you tell a student who is interested in STEM but also enjoys the humanities like yourself?

Junwoo

I would say outdo both, yeah.

Kathrine

Did you ever find, oh sorry, did you ever like have any trouble balancing the two?

Junwoo

No, because I love both, I love both of them equally, so not much trouble other than time management, but time management is a skill that you learn over time, and also I feel like it's a much resolvable issue if you're truly passionate about it, like if you love it, you'll always find a way to do it, you know what I mean? So just make sure, the hardest part is to find something that you truly love, and once you find that, you'll find a way to do it anyway. So if anything, you need to switch the priority, in my opinion, of finding the thing that you love, and then everything will resolve by itself if you truly love it, yeah.

Kathrine

And finally, what is one small step a student can take this month to explore your field?

Junwoo

Could you say the question again?

Kathrine

Like, do you want me to just say it again?

Junwoo

Yep.

Kathrine

What is one small step a student can take this month to explore your field?

Junwoo

What advice you mean?

Kathrine

Yeah, like what kind of like, do you have any materials you would recommend them to take a look at, to like, materials to take a look at?

Junwoo

I would say read a lot of books, not gonna lie, like any field. It doesn't have to be neuroscience-based, it doesn't have to be psychology-based, but if anything, books are free or really cheap ways to explore a different field, different world, different perspective immediately, right? But I mean, going back to the attention span idea, a lot of students are struggling to kind of engage in materials for an extended period of time, but having that grit is going to help you tremendously to be well-spoken, to have a really good ability to adapt to new materials, things of that nature, so definitely to think about, okay?

Kathrine

Yeah, okay, so that's all of my questions. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences and I really appreciate it.

Junwoo

Amazing, yeah.