Friday, December 19, 2014

My Plan for December and January

1 My Plan in December
After finishing my final report and exam on December 12th, I have been enjoying a relaxing life, meeting many people and reflecting on my days in the fall semester, without feeling the pressure of due dates. There have been many events, including a year-end party of the Japanese Harvard Association and a networking dinner between the Tufts Fletcher School Japan Club and the Kennedy School Japan Caucus. My co-worker from Japan, who is now studying at Cornell Business School, visited me, and we went to eat ramen at Yume wo Katare, a famous Japanese ramen shop in Porter Square. I also held a sushi party in my apartment, inviting friends living nearby, with the cooperation of a Japanese friend from HKS. Today, I will go to a year-end party at the Vogel School, a place where Japanese students and researchers often gather and discuss various issues in Japan. I feel that these networking opportunities I help broaden my perspective by talking with people from different fields, such as business, medicine, and education.

This weekend and the beginning of the next week, I plan to go to New York for the first time in my life. It’s only four to five hours from Boston to New York. During the semester, I often wanted to go to New York, but I didn't have a chance to go there because I was busy with classes and extra-curricular activities. In New York, I will meet a friend from my college basketball club, a coworker from my previous workplace, and other senior co-workers from my current company. I also want to look around major sightseeing places such as Times Square and Ground Zero, as well as watch a musical.

2 My Plan in January
From the 5th-16th of January, I will take a class for January Term at the Kennedy School. Students don't necessarily have to take January Term courses. Some students will go to warm places such as Florida and California, and some international students will go back to their home countries. I will take a course called "Arts of Communication". The lecturer is Holly Weeks, who is a specialist in communication skills and has taught various communication seminars at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Business School. This course will train students to be effective communicators, especially focusing on presentations and speechmaking. Each student has to give three presentations during the course. Students will give feedback on each other's presentations as well as reviewing their own presentation videos. For this class, students earn 0.5 credits. In Japan, I didn’t have this kind of intensive presentation and speech training seminar. I decided to take this course because the intensive practice of speaking English in front of audiences will give me great confidence over the next 1.5 years at HKS.

From the 17th-25th of January, I will go to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as part of a research program at the Kennedy School called The Emirates Leadership Initiative Program.On the trip, students will visit the World Future Energy Summit, Masdar City,  the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, and the Dubai Expo 2020 Sustainability Team. The UAE is a significant country for Japan's energy security because the UAE is the second largest exporter of oil to Japan and the eighth largest exporter of LNG to Japan. During the trip, I would like to keep in mind an important question: How can Japan and the UAE cooperate in the energy field in the coming years?

Admission to this program was competitive: 27 students were selected out of over 100 applicants. I and a  mid-career student from China are the only Asian students. This year, there are 11 Japanese students at HKS, a small number compared to past years. I am well aware that I benefit from this small number of Japanese students because I can be accepted for this kind of program more easily than if I were here in previous years. At the same time,  it is my belief that these small numbers are a problem: Asian students are underrepresented in the Kennedy School. Discussions tend to be led by Western students. It’s my goal to increase the presence of Asian students in the Kennedy School, and find a way to make our voices heard.




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