アメリカ留学 (Studying in the United States)
This class covered a vast amount of material at a very fast pace. Over the semester, there were approximately five midterm and final exams in total. I think that grades were primarily based on the scores from these exams, along with assignments such as reports. I believe everyone who attended graduate school in the United States, including myself, aimed to achieve better grades than their peers. The atmosphere felt very competitive. In this class, the first test was very easy, and I remember...
Toxicology of insecticides (Spring 1995) This class was highly dense, focusing on the toxicology of insecticides and incorporating findings from published research papers. The content of the class itself was probably close to the area of expertise of the advisor during my time in graduate school at Chiba University. However, due to the language barrier, it was a very frustrating class. I believe I studied hard, but memorizing the material was difficult, which often left me feeling frustrated....
The professor who taught this class conducted research on the speciation of an intriguing group of cicadas known as treehoppers. He had a cigar in his mouth, wore jeans and boots, and sported a bandana on his head. His appearance gave off a distinctly American vibe, making me recognize that I was really in America. In America, it seems quite common to drink something during lectures. I remember the professor playfully teasing me in class, saying, "He is drinking a Cherry Coke," when I was...
Insect ecology (Fall 1994) In this class, which I took during my first semester in the United States (Fall 1994), we used a thick textbook of nearly 700 pages on the topic of speciation, a field within evolutionary biology. Many researchers contributed a chapter each, with each chapter being about 20 pages long. This course was a required subject for the master's program in the Department of Entomology, and all 20 or so graduate students in the department had to take it. Each student in the...
After completing my master’s degree at Chiba University in Japan, I went to the United States. Because I enrolled in a master's degree program in the United States too, I not only had to do research but also take graduate school classes and earn the necessary credits. In Japan, graduate school classes are often more of a formality, and in many cases, there are even no exams at all. However, this is not the case in American graduate schools. I had to study more than I did as an undergraduate,...
Even now, more than 20 years after graduating, I still receive letters and emails from the University of Delaware requesting donations. I believe these contributions help fund student stipends, like the assistantship I received during my time in the United States, so I would like to support them as much as I can. However, since securing a stable income is currently difficult for me, I cannot contribute as much as I would like. Even so, I view graduate education as an investment in the future...
Even if we want to pursue graduate studies, many people in Japan seem to view attending graduate school as a form of delaying responsibility. When I was in Japan, I often received criticism and advice like, "You're living off your parents' money" or "Get out into society and start working" whenever I mentioned that I was attending graduate school. However, in the United States, I think the assistantships and other benefits for graduate students are very generous. I think it is likely a...
In my case, I was a Japanese student with limited English skills, so I was initially accepted as a self-financed student. I think my parents supported me on the condition that I would work hard during the first semester, achieve good grades, and secure a scholarship. As I had promised my parents, I secured a research assistantship starting the next semester, which exempted me from tuition fees during my time in the United States. I was able to study and conduct research while receiving a...
System of the graduate school It has been more than 20 years since I studied at the University of Delaware, so I am unfamiliar with the current graduate school system. However, I believe that even back then, there were significant differences between the United States and Japan in terms of graduate education, which I would like to briefly describe here. Recently in Japan also, more students have been able to receive scholarships, making it seem easier for them to continue their studies compared...
I am not exactly sure how Newark is defined and classified in the United States, but my impression from studying there was that it felt like a college town, with a large university at its center, surrounded by apartment buildings and many university students. The university was quite large, so school buses made regular trips around campus and even extended to several nearby apartment complexes, all free of charge, of course. I felt that Newark was a college town because the university was...