Hidemasa ODA

It was nice to visit Singapore. Singapore was an easy place to live for international students. Food and transport are cheap and the city is clean and safe.

I was able to see professors who are specialised in the subject in which I was interested. I acquire some knowledge and widened my perspective.

Japanese universities should have more international students. Also, more Japanese students have to study abroad to broaden their perspective. It is important to meet the world's best students from all over the world.

I like Singaporean food very much. There is a vast variety of food: Chinese, Malay, Tamil and others. I am sick of eating Japanese food. I want to go back Singapore and eat Singaporean food. Furthermore, the price of food is really low. You do not need more than 200 yen to have a lunch in the cafeteria in the university.

There was another advantage of taking part in this programme. ESSVAP was a nice programme to get to know students from different speciality. I was able to gain some knowledge about the department of physics from other members of ESSVAP.

Yuta MURAKAMI

This project gave me the opportunity to go abroad for the first time (at least as far as I remember). So, I realized many things. I sensed the difference in the education system and that the world is very wide. I have got to strongly hope to play an active part in the world.

I will speak concretely. I thought Singapore is superior to Japan in two ways. (of course there are other points and many better points in Japan) First, they argue eagerly. You can write something on the most part of the wall, and I found students argue delightfully in many places, like "Quantum Café" at CQT. Of course, we do argument, but I think it is not so often. Secondly, the support for researcher is very good. Singapore government invests in science for their future and I could sense the passion through the talk with students and professors. The former is the matter of ourselves and I will try to argue more often. But the latter depends on Japan government and I can have any hope in the today situation. What I can do is only to make every effort to be a great scientist, and try to make them understand the significance of science, I think.

Finally, please allow me to express a word of thanks. Thank you very much, Ms. Hamada and Ms. Gosho, for preparing and support us through this project. Thank you, everyone who I met in Singapore. Thank you, all of the members of ESSVAP.

I really happy to meet all of you!

Kyogo KAWAGUCHI

I was truely looking forward to visit Singapore, the newest and one of the most proceeding environments especially for biological researches, and I should say that what I got to see was much more than I expected. Visiting the faculties in the universities and Biopolis, I found young researchers with great enthusiasm toward their research, together with distinguished scientists from abroad with even more passion.

I should say that visiting Singapore is a little different to visiting the world's most famous universities like in the other years of this program. For me, half of the motivation was to see for myself the liveliness of the country. Having the opportunity to talk with many people especially involved in research, I learned a lot from watching how such a small country is struggling its way to the dynamic challenge towards science.

How much emphasis we should put on fundamental science is a very difficult issue, and a hot topic in Japan too. I felt we have a lot to learn from Singapore's challenge.

Kazuhiro YAMANAKA

It is true that according to the magazine's university ranking, NTU and NUS slightly fall behind top-of-top universities in the world that are hosts of former ESSVAP programs, but I think we learned by visiting NUS and NTU as much as the top-of-top universities.

Now, I'm going to focus on the field of Physics for a moment. I guess there are 2 important different points between university in Singapore and in Japan. First, most of the researches in Singapore are categorized into condensed matter physics, and such as elementary particle physics and astrophysics is not so hot area. This is related to the fact that Singapore is new county and doesn't have a basis for the fields. Elementary particle physics and astrophysics cost much money than condensed matter physics. The other is that university in Singapore is more internationalized. In Japan, there are few students from foreign countries, and most of research staff are Japanese. In addition, I was impressed with that the barrier between labs is very low. This kind of things are mentioned by the former ESSVAP students, so I guess circumstances in Singapore is closer to the world standard. I don't judge which is better, but I recognized the specialty of the environment in Japan and would like to interact with people who have diverse backgrounds for myself after this.

I was deeply moved by Prof. Vlatko Vedral when we met him as a individual visit. He is an expert of quantum information theory. Luckily, we had a chance to join in - actually just watch - the discussion with his colleagues. My major is experimental physics, so it was the first time in my life to take part in the realm of discussion by theorists. I have to admit I couldn't fully follow the discussion but I was very excited to see the process of creating frameworks of new theory.

I'm sorry I couldn't show you all the things I felt and thought in Singapore. By visiting Singapore which I feel more near to me than Western university, I have got a chance to reflect on myself many times. I would like to report the results of our visit and make full use of the experiences in my student life and after that.

Hakuto SUZUKI

• Singapore is a very comfortable country to live in. (delicious food, clean city, English-speaking people)
• The will of the Singapore government reflect on science and technology. Clever politicians. (there are savings for education)
• Singaporean are proud of racial and religious diversity.
• We must improve our skills by going abroad.
• It is important to master the fundamentals of mathematics and physics in our undergraduate.
• Everyone excluding Japanese people speaks English well. We must train much harder.
• It is essential to broaden our outlooks by obtaining wide knowledge.
• We reconfirmed the high level of research in Japan.
• Viva ESSVAP!

I would like to make full use of the valuable experiences. I am deeply grateful to ESSVAP members, and Ms. Gosho and Ms. Hamada at the International Liaison Office.

Tomoki OTSUKI

I had very fruitful 9 days. I really enjoyed talking with the other participants of ESSVAP, so I think I have achieved one of ESSVAP's goals: "Exchange between different departments". However, when it comes to international exchange with students in Singapore, I feel obliged to confess that it was below par. If the student's favorite areas coincide with mine, I could communicate with her or him with no difficulties, but it was hard for me to do so if her or his interests are completely different from mine.

Throughout the trip, I realized my weak point in English. We were told the importance of English over and over by Japanese who contacted us there.

Although the two Singaporean Universities are still developing, their way of "hunting researchers who already have achieved scientific reputation from overseas" was very impressive and Japanese government has many to learn from their strategy. There is a negative side too. Although the support for the researchers whose subjects agree with the government's aims looks great, I had an impression that the support for purely academic fields is very limited.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the professors who accepted me to participate in this program, my friends, International Liaison Office, and all the people I met in Singapore. I especially thank Hamada-san for my fantastic days. She always cared about our physical condition and made great effort for arranging transportation and dinners. I cannot thank Hamada-san enough.

This experience will be my unforgettable memory. THANK YOU!!!!

Kosuke SHAKU

Throughout this program, I learned so many things about how people study science. Although Astronomy or Astrophysics is not studied vividly in Singapore, ideas learned there are still helpful for our future research. I was also impressed at aggressive policies of Singaporean government about science and technology. I don't know exactly what Japanese science community should be, but Singapore's policies must be very instructive for us.

If it were not for great help from the international liaison office and every person who supported us, our visit could have succeeded. I cannot be more thankful to them.

Ayaka FUKUSHIMA

This program gave me the opportunity to experience many precious things than I had expected.

Academy

• As I study on "Climate variability in southeast Asia", a visit to Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), which is famous for studies on natural hazards in Southeast Asia, made me grope about what to study in future.
• On my graduation thesis, which is my first study, I was able to discuss with professors.
• I got to know what researchers in other departments study. (My friends often taught me in Japanese because it was rather difficult for me !!)

Education & Research

• I realized again what is the problem with educational system and research in Japan by putting myself in Singapore.
• I was impressed by ambitious students who are doing their researches even though they are still in the 1st or 2nd grades.

Communication

• People in Singapore welcomed us and tried to hear my poor English all the time.
• The opportunity to get close other participants from other departments was very precious.
• I sometimes communicated with Indonesian & Malay (I learned at Komaba) in the universities and at the restaurant.

Hobby

• I met a Japanese student who majors in Music (Marimba) at NUS. (Marimba is my hobby!) She graduated from high school in Japan and went to Singapore alone. Then she's going to enter graduate school in the US in order to become a marimbist. I was impressed by such an ambitious Japanese.

I would like to make full use of these experiences and return a favor in future.

In the end, this program was successful because many people fully coordinated for us. Thank you very very much for Ms. Gosho, Ms. Hamada, professors, students and staffs at NTU & NUS, people in Singapore and ESSVAP 2010 participants :-)

Atsunori NAKAMURA

I am grateful for being chosen to participate in ESSVAP. I experienced various new thing through this program such as visiting laboratories and having a discussion with professors. I think the best experience during this program was "individual visit." I visited 4 professors at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and 1 at National University of Singapore (NUS).

Another thing that was precious to me was that I had an opportunity to get acquainted with students from other departments of the University of Tokyo. I would like to thank everybody who supported this program. And I especially thank the members of ESSVAP. I want to keep in touch with them.

In the end, I would like to thank Ms. Hamada, Ms. Gosho, and the International Liaison Office.

Marie YOSHIKIYO

The experience I had through this program was far more rich and varied than I had expected.

First, before we departed, we contacted researchers overseas who we had never even seen before to make appointments for Individual Visits. Through this process, I think I became more active and able to make moves on my own.

During the nine days in Singapore, I experienced and absorbed so many things. My school days at The University of Tokyo had been so natural to me, but through seeing the research environments and talking with the students in Singapore, I realized that it was not a general thing and that there are many types of school life and research life in the world. Sometime, in my future career, I would like to go abroad to know more about the outside world and also about Japan. I also keenly felt that English was very important. In Singapore, there are many students and researchers from all over the world, and for most of them, English is a foreign language. However, everything, from lectures to meetings, is all done in English, and I thought that they were trained to speak in English. The thought of competing in the world came clearer to me, and at the same time, I thought that the Japanese education system had a problem how almost everything is done in Japanese.

In this program, there were many cases where you had to think and act on your own, and it made me worried before the trip. However, it was a very good experience. For Individual Visits, I walked around the campus and looked for the professor's office, and after the visit, I went back to the hotel on my own using buses and trains. During the free time, we walked through the market area where the Singaporeans shop, we had dinner at food stands in town, and there were even times when the clerks did not understand English. Through these experiences, I was able to actually see the life of the people in Singapore, and it was very precious.

One more thing that was very precious to me in this trip is that I was able to get close the ESSVAP members each studying in other fields. I was able to hear their ideas from their points of view, and also learn the attractive points of their majors. Among the places we visited, there were many laboratories with people from different backgrounds working together. I think that this experience of spending time with people from different departments will definitely flourish in the future. I would like to keep in touch with the members even after the program is over.

In the end, I would like to thank everybody in International Liaison Office, the teachers and students who hosted us, the 10 ESSVAP members, and Miss. Hamada who lead us during the whole trip.

Chie UMATANI

In this program, I had too much experience to include here and got many new viewpoints. As my impression, I would like to write what I realized the most so that readers can understand Singapore.

• We can feel the effects of government policy everywhere in Singapore. (They paint buildings many times and make them look clean to attract foreign people, set a different price for amusement buildings for Singaporeans and foreigners, and so on.)
• New institutes look like those in Europe and the USA.
• The model animals and test reagents are strictly limited by law.
• People in Singapore invite foreign researchers and students actively.

Though we were just visitors, people that we met welcomed us kindly. I thank them very much. Also, I would like to thank the other members of this program, and Ms. Hamada, who led us.