The development of science and technology in modern society consistently requires the development of new and state-of-the-art materials responding to domestic and foreign upheavals. This program aims to cultivate high-level engineers to meet the needs of industry, science, and technology, and to supply a better quality education through the research and development of new materials to solve the problems of engineering community. This program also aims to cultivate talented people suitable for industries and research institutes by opening courses in various fields for the development of materials to perform more successful research.

The advancement of scientific technology constantly requires the use of new materials. Materials science and engineering is the study finding the relationship between the microstructure and properties of materials through development, application, and manufacturing of materials, and aims to design new materials which provide more convenient and cheaper tools and to develop new manufacturing processes to enhance productivity and competitiveness.
The Program of Materials Science and Engineering has a wide range of education and research programs for metals, ceramics, electronics, and polymeric materials, and emphasizes education on the phenomenon and principle related to the microstructure and properties of various materials. For this purpose, this program not only trains students to understand the relationship between the microstructure and the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of materials, based on basic sciences, but also performs various research to improve the properties of materials with various kinds of process design parameters and manufacturing technology through paper research.

Materials industry as the center of all industrial-based developments, e.g. metals, inorganic, organic, composite materials, is recognized as a standard to estimate the industrial development of a country. In the present, much of the money has been intensively invested in the research and development of materials, compared to other industries. In other words, the development of new materials, ranging from the traditional ferrous and non-ferrous materials to recent energy and eco-friendly materials, nano-materials, bio-materials, semiconductor including electronic packaging materials and non-destructive reliability, will continue until the end of the development of human civilization.
Materials-related industries cover electronics, semiconductors, bio-medical, steel, automotives, ships, aircraft, nuclear power, and material processing industries, and are making inroads into many engineering and basic science research fields such as, national research institutes, public enterprises, non-destructive analysis companies, environment, information and communications, high-precision processing technology, and venture enterprises, including academics.

Materials technology, the basis for the development of civilization, plays a leading role in all industrial sectors. Nevertheless, there are currently not enough human resources responsible for the national development of materials, and the shortage of manpower is expected to be more intensified in the near future. Thus, the cultivation of highly skilled scientific technicians through the retraining of the workforce is greatly required in addition to the advanced training of young scientists and engineers. In summary, future development potential of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is regarded to be very high at home and abroad and will play a role in strengthening the capacity of the Republic of Korea to be developed into industrialized countries by training high-quality human resources which contribute to the industrial development of the country and respond to these global industry trends and by investing manpower for national research institutes and corporate research organizations.