Weichen Qiu
Environmental Science

Since high school, I have always been a student of science. After I participated in the “Hult prize” competition, I had talked with students who were students of liberal arts and also Nitobe School. I found that talking with students from other majors was helpful to think widely, and their perspective make difference with mine. I was able to obtain new knowledge via the discussion with them.

Besides, the reason that I’d like to apply for this program was that the knowledge or skills I could learn from this program has intersection with what I’m learning, but they focus on different aspects. Just as I know, Nitobe School lays emphasis on team work, cooperation and discussion; I think I can get a lot, such as, how to work in a team, which role is suitable for me in the team while it’ll change following the situation and how to well cooperate with the leader. Additionally, in Nitobe School, we always discuss some frontline problems and hot issues of the international community; I think it’s a good chance to train the ways of thinking.

At the end of the first semester, we had a project management class, which was very interesting. I had never thought I would design a city on a lecture. It was so attractive. We can put anything which is thought to be important at any place we like in that city map. The final objective was to build a town to reduce the financial loss and casualties.

In the second semester, Nitobe School invited a teacher who is a native English speaker to teach us how we can make a good English slides and present it well. During the lecture, I deeply felt this teacher’s charm, and her presentation was so interesting with clear priorities. In school, we always need to make slides and present it in English. However, due to the special nature that English has, slides sometimes will be full of characters, which make slides look prolix. So we have to modify it methodically, replace some words with pictures, and also combine our language expressions, then can catch the audience.

Actually, Nitobe School didn’t occupy so much time, just once a week, although it’s a 3 hour class. Besides, homework also was not so much. If it is a short report assignment, basically it will be finished immediately after the lecture. In the case of searching information, if I spend one hour per day for searching in the internet, it will generally be finished before the next class.

After the Master’s course, I will go for a Doctor course, on the condition that I can get a scholarship to support my study. I obtained lots of data in this one and half years. The region I’m researching on has no relevant data before due to Fukushima Nuclear Power Station issue, so our research is a pioneering work. It’s a rare opportunity for me. If possible, I would like to finish it.

If I don’t go to the doctoral course, I will try to find a job in Japan, I have searched lots of information recently. International tourist industry which is flourishing these years probably will be one of the opinions. The revitalization of tourist industry will drive the development of construction, communication, hotel, entertainment, catering and almost 30 industries; and Japan has so many wonderful tourism resources which are well protected, so Japan chose it as one of the industries to invigorate the country.

Recent years in Japan, the population of tourists is increasing. Large majority of them are not only from China or Taiwan, but also from Malaysia and Thailand due to loosening the tourist visa policy. Regardless of China and Taiwan, Malaysia also has many ethnic Chinese origins and it’s also a country which is used in English. As a Chinese, on the one hand, I can utilize my language, on the other hand, I can realize their demand in some ways. Probably I can do jobs in planning.

In my opinion, tourist industry gains a promising expectation in Japan, so I’d like to seek opportunities in this field.