Abhinav Dengri

Graduate School of Engineering, Master’s Course
Nitobe College Honors Program 2nd batch student

My decision to pursue future education in japan was galvanized my passion for exploring something new. In India, I was working as a researcher aiming to solve the challenge of water resources. I joined to river and watershed lab to study the interaction between land and atmosphere and its influence on the water cycle. My view of life is simple. Observe carefully, extract information, implement information practically and fine-tune for yourself. My aim is to understand the global water cycle and help developing countries to cope with better management of water resources.

I was introduced to Nitobe graduate college on the orientation day. It attracted me, and I enquired more about it from my friends. Their reviews were motivating. The primary points I expected from the foundation course was as simple as like everyone. Meet more international people in the university and help myself to absorb the cultural shock. Secondly, the provision of scholarship. Finally, practical and interactive sessions rather than content learning.

With effervescent, I enrolled in the Foundation course. Let me tell you about my first session experience. In my group, we were four people from different part of the globe. We are asked to write one international brand, one by one on a sticky note. Then, we wrote the name of various house appliances on a sticky note. Next, we are asked to choose one brand and one house appliance, which everyone knows and agree. My group decided ‘BMW’ (The famous German car manufacturer) and ‘Vaccum cleaner’. Now we are instructed to use our unbridled creativity (even fantasy) and help the brand company to design the chosen house appliance. Surprisingly no idea was made fun of or judged by any person. I could feel the freedom and confidence to became as creative as possible and finally presenting our new product to the class and defending its creation during the presentation. The important objective of the Nitobe College is hands-on practical training in each session. Debating on topics like LGBTQ to designing the project to solve the rising AIDS problem in the Philippines. From the first class, you challenge your brain to start thinking. The point is not that you theoretically learn brainstorming, creative thinking and critical thinking, but you practically do these things.

The best part of the Nitobe college is that they have a scholarship if you decided to enrol in Advance courses. With the positive experience of foundation course and opportunity to get a scholarship, I decided to continue to the Advance course. The conundrum of dealing with the COVID-19 prompted the university to cancel many classes. The quick-witted Nitobe faculty chose to conduct the study using an online platform. I must accept that my skills to work with a team online has now exceptionally augmented. We used online platforms like zoom, Miro virtual board and Nitobe Portfolio System (NPS) for creating the project, presentation, feedbacks and Q&As. In all, I learned a skill which is not even a part of Nitobe curriculum but necessary to keep myself updated with the changing working scenario post-COVID -19. Advance courses are definitely next level sessions. The focus is to revitalize the entrepreneurship skill in the students. I did two projects, devising the strategy for the small-scale restaurants during COVID-19 and finding the potential reasons leading to shopping refugee in heavy snowfall cities. Getting the first-hand advice from Dr Shane (Hokkaido University Medical school) and Terry sensei helped my team to explore new avenues. Finally, Taku Nakahara sensei (Expert in Startups) advised us on making our idea’s to revenue-generating business.

I will conclude that there are many people with one specialty but finding a person with two or more specialty is extremely rare. Nitobe college provides a comprehensive course to sharpen your entrepreneurship skills. I now use project management skills to manage my degree course, organizing the meetups and lab seminars. Interestingly, my productivity has soared tremendously. Lastly, working in an international environment helped me to grow my cultural quotient. I feel ready than ever to work in a multinational environment. Thus, if you are in Hokkaido University, you can’t miss the Nitobe College.