[Welcome, First-Time at UNIST?] Student Clubs In-depth “Hexa”

《Editor’s Note: The spread of COVID-19 has brought significant changes to college campuses worldwide, forcing virtually all universities in South Korea to switch to online education. UNIST has been conducting non-face-to-face lectures since the first semester of 2020. However, with the recent decline in cases, many expect that campus life will soon return to normal. In order to help new students adapt to university life, the UNIST News Center and the Student Affairs Team plan to produce more episodes of ‘Welcome, First-Time at UNIST?’ in series.》

Known as the hacking club, the official programming society of UNIST, HeXa played a major role in promoting UNIST in the early days of its opening by winning numerous awards at the international supercomputing competitions. Let’s learn more about HeXa.

Hello, we are Hexa, the official programming society of UNIST. The name HeXA refers to Hacker’s eXciting Academy. HeXA was founded in 2011 as a hacking society. Since then, it has expanded its field to become a comprehensive programming society, and both graduates and current members freely exchange questions and answers and grow together.

Q1. What kind of activities does HeXA do?

At HeXA, we conduct studies and projects every semester. This semester, studies such as system hacking CTF study, C/C++ study, Style-Transfer guide are being conducted, and various projects, such as BUS HeXA, Blackboard extension program, and Tetris making are in progress.

BUS HeXA v2.0 usefully used by UNIST students. Ulsan MBC also introduced this. | Image Credit: Ulsan MBC

Style-Transfer guidance study conducted online and offline. l Image Credit: HeXa

The members expand their projects and participate in various competitions, contests, and hackathons, and sometimes get good results and receive awards. Recently, teams created within HeXA achieved the feat of winning the Excellence Award at the LG Electronics H&A Growth Hacking Contest and the Silver Award at the 1st UNIST-POSTECH-KAIST Data Science Contest. Also, seminars and competitions are held from the HeXAton to the UNI-CODE, and coding education at the Ulju The Dream Campus with the UNIST Leadership Center, contributing to the interest in programming with many people inside and outside the school.

HeXA member conducting coding education to middle school students in Ulju-gun at Ulju The Dream Campus. l Image Credit: HeXa

Q2. What are the attractions of HeXA?

The biggest attraction of HeXA is that it can freely communicate with members and graduates with excellent programming skills.

As we continue to ask and answer questions, we can discover shortcomings, and this becomes the driving force for each of us to grow in the direction we want. Each of them is a competitor and a companion to future developers. In fact, some of the studies are taken by graduates, and in the process, they gain a lot of knowledge necessary for the job.

2022 HeXA society room. HeXA, founded in 2011 as a hacking club, is now loved by many students as a comprehensive programming society. l Image Credit: HeXa

In particular, there are many outstanding graduates from HeXA, such as those who have joined international companies such as OpenAI, Qualcomm, Amazon, and Microsoft, those who want to create new values through startups, and those who have entered famous overseas graduate schools. We have channels through which we can communicate with them through KakaoTalk or Slack, so it seems that members can grow with bigger goals through special opportunities and positive stimulation that can only be obtained from HeXA.

After graduating from UNIST, Kim Tae-hoon (UNIST CSE 11) became a software engineer at OpenAI, founded by Elon Musk. He also served as President of HeXA. | Image Credit: eo

Q3. HeXA; Who do you recommend?

We would recommend it to students who are interested in programming, active and sincere. In particular, we believe that active students will gain a lot from HeXA. In HeXA, there are many communication channels for different interests, and things can be freely created and destroyed. By actively bumping into and communicating with various people, new connections are made, and new projects based on shared interests can lead to participation in competitions and even awards. As such, if you talk a lot, ask a lot of questions, and answer a lot through channels at HeXA, you will find yourself growing without realizing it.

Team JORDI (Seonuk Kim, Junhwa Hong, Mina Kang, Jaewoo Park) presenting at the 1st UNIST-POSTECH-KAIST Data Science Contest. It is a team created within HeXA, and finally won the Silver Award. l Image Credit: HeXa

It is by no means easy to conduct a study or project while taking classes during the semester at UNIST. However, there are certain things that are gained in this process, and they accumulate one after another and become skills. When you look back at yourself at some point, if you can feel proud of yourself as you have grown, HeXA will be the best society to you.

HeXA Email: hexa.unist@gmail.com
HeXA Github Blog: https://hexa-unist.github.io