Shi Minghui
Master Course Student, Graduate School of Environmental Science

I am very lucky that I had the chance to join the first Nitobe School. In the all four semesters, we learned about practical skills and abilities which are hardly learned in our master researches. For me, the abilities of project management, group working and mutual understanding are the most useful ones.

In my master study, I usually work by myself, to read articles and books, to search the information on the internet, or to do some fieldwork. And my laboratory members have the similar background with me, so we share the similar way of thinking. However, in Nitobe School, we had to work with different group members who have maybe totally different backgrounds, and we should work together to share our ideas and then reach to one conclusion. We need to manage each one’s role and we need to make full use of time and resources.

At the first semester, we did not well as I thought, sometimes we wanted to express our own idea, and we didn’t fully understand the method and the meaning of group working, we even made some unhappy situation. But gradually we made progress, practice makes perfect, and in this situation, I think practice makes us get used to group work. We do better in mutual understanding, in distribution of work, in time management and in efficiency of work. And those skills would definitely helped us not only in our master study, but also in our future career life.

Also, thanks to Nitobe School, I made lots of new friends. Lots of them I might not have had a chance to talk with if I didn’t join Nitobe School. We comes from different faculties and we have different interests and researches, but in Nitobe School, we worked together, shared our opinions and even went out for fieldwork together, that gave us good chances to know each other. Besides, we also had some parties and gathering out of classes, and I really enjoyed those precious time.

There are still some places needed to be improved in the first Nitobe School, but now, when I looked back, I thought all were good memories. I did learn so much and made friends, and I really enjoyed it.