国際学生ワークショップ2009 - 参加者レポート -
CAS IGDBIt was the first time for me to travel abroad and at the beginning I was uneasy considering how to get along with so many strangers. But when I arrived, the warm welcome of NAIST hosts and the friendly manners of other students dispersed all the anxiety I had. Though the participants come from different countries and have different cultural and scientific background, the same aspiration for disclosing scientific truth brought our hearts together. I was amazed by the fact that we became acquainted so fast in the following days.
During the short assembling time, we had been sharing, debating and laughing in a comfortable atmosphere. We exchanged our thoughts, dreams and even detailed experimental strategies like classmates. It felt great to see what we had devoted our painstaking effort to do were approved by peers and to receive others’ opinions and suggestions. The chance of attending this workshop was so precious that all of us exerted ourselves to get the largest benefit from it to communicate. The Japanese and Chinese students, whose native language is not English, dramatically improved the abilities to present and discuss our work in English. We were glad to get to know these youngsters from other parts of the world, who were trying to solve difficult scientific problems with toil and enthusiasm as we do. We were deeply touched by the distinct but splendid cultures of other countries. There were numerous active thoughts eliciting us to introspect our life and career prospects, thus urging us to pay more attention on self-design and training to be a qualified graduate student.
This international student workshop was a great success. It was a life changing experience for most of us, which also established a special connection between these junior scientific researchers. I hope that this connection will consistently promote the scientific and cultural communication among us in the future.
UC DAVIS CBSThe 2009NAIST International Student Workshop was an amazing experience I will never forget! To learn to communicate at an international level with this career choice is a necessity. What better way is there than to spend a week with students from NAIST, CAS, and UCD? Very practical lessons are quickly learned, for example, asking short questions are best in a conference to avoid getting lost in translation.
The best part of the workshop is the people. It was easy to discuss research one on one during breaks and learn culture over sake. It is one thing to hear about culture from international students in America, but to be able to room with them and talk all night over drinks is priceless! I have made some unforgettable friends that I hope to remain in contact with after the workshop.
Finally, the hospitality is unmatched. The food needs to be taken advantage of while there. Being able to come home with stories of eating raw horse and raw chicken dipped in raw egg is, to say the least, entertaining! We were shown select cities by the NAIST students, which were great, but the bonding between us was better. My recommendations are to take the road less traveled and go to Osaka!
Thank you so much the NAIST community for being so helpful and accommodating.
NAIST BSThe International Student Workshop was a wonderful experience for me. We students, gathered from China, the U.S.A. and Japan, presented our research under the theme "environmental adaptation", with different research topics ranging from microorganisms to plants and animals. Therefore, many of us had difficulty in telling others who have different backgrounds about the interesting points of our research in a time-restricted presentation. Using English was also challenging for non-native speakers. In my presentation, I attempted to give a clear explanation that would lead listeners to ask many questions, but I don’t think I succeeded. During oral presentations, we had to admit that we could not have lively discussion all the time because of the reasons above. Instead, we had lively discussions in the later poster session, because we could make comments and ask questions at any time.
We became friends quickly, because we stayed together for several days and because we all have a sense of community as researchers in biological science. I talked a lot with my roommates from China and Taiwan and I was surprised that we have so much common cultural background as Asian people. Short trips to Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara also strengthened our friendships. The foreign students seemed to enjoy their cultural experience. If we had more time, I really wanted to guide them to many other places.
Spending almost a week with students from China and the U.S.A. was a short but fulfilling period of time for me. I could submerge in the environment of communicating in English with foreign students, and I would like to visit their cities. I was also very glad to make friends with the Japanese participants, because we have few opportunities to talk to each other in our daily lives. Lastly, I would like to thank the NAIST GCOE program for giving me this meaningful opportunity.