- In my lab, all of the papers written by Japanese students have to be checked by foreign students (which are mostly non-native speakers). The quality of the writing is typically less than mediocre, with a few exceptions.
- We have a seminar every week in which the Japanese students talk in Japanese and will get questions only by the Japanese, while the foreign students present in English and will only get questions from the other foreign students. The environment is a bit toxic.
- I have a monthly meeting of 30 minutes with my supervisor (should be bi-weekly but he almost never has time for it). Those meetings are usually about which journal or conference we should submit an article to, seldom and barely scratching the surface of what my research is about.
- Teachers who give their classes in English will get many complaints from Japanese students. In the end most of them switch (back) to teaching in Japanese again.
- This year I will probably have to go to some sort of job hunting myself, but I'm mostly considering jobs in academia because of the job hunting process for companies seems inhumane. I have heard of cases where students join a company and end up working on projects not remotely related to their research interests.
I often blame myself for not speaking enough Japanese and because of that missing opportunities, but at the same time I am of the opinion that education on the masters and PhD level should be given in English because that seems to be the de facto language of international academia.
There are candidate pools that are "potential hires" with no assignment pre offer, and there are "specialist hires" where you know the team you'll be assigned to. Only accept the latter.
The job hunt process isn't nearly as bad for technical hires as it is for humanities grads.
I completely agree that grad level work should be done in English. I know a few brilliant researchers at Stanford who will likely head back to Japan to take academic posts because their English (and mainly politics of academia) skills just weren't good enough, and their taking the "wiser route out".
I don't know your field, but I hear good things about places like Hitachi Chuou Research.
Don't worry, this is about par for the course (if you have a great graduate advisor, treasure them).
This is normal worldwide - they hire you for your problem-solving skills, not for your tiny research niche
So you wanna change schools? You have to change the system and reposition many teachers, but nope, it's not allowed. Teachers are well protected by the Japanese labor law and they can't do any other job (and from what I saw they're particularly inflexible work force). You want more diverse students? Good luck with finding a good career path for them, because under the lifetime employment system you can get good choices only when you're young, and you have to stay in the same company for the rest of your life. Again, many people assume that way and many financial systems in Japan are built upon this assumption. And finally, you want many more competitive researchers? Nooo, because there are too many mediocre researchers that have tenure already. You can't compete with them. Again, blame the lifetime employment system.
I, too, honestly don't know what's a good exit path from this. Personally I think having more immigrants is a way to go, but then there's this right-wing people and Trumpism going rampage right now. Sigh.
Not sure how true that is or if the article touches on that, since it’s paywalled.
First, many folks, especially at the better schools, are genuinely interested in the topics they are studying. As such, they will go above and beyond in some or all of their classes.
Second, in many programs, the professors have contacts in the field that can lead to premium jobs. These are often the most-adored professor in a given department -- mainly because they add a human side to the sometimes bookish disposition of many of the professors... and they make it rain. The student know who these professors are via their senpais, and they go way out of their way to make a good impression in those professors classes. This effort usually reaps huge dividends for talented students.
1) Do you know anyone from the West who would go to Japan for a professorship? I just asked around my univ (which is top 3 publication-wise) and it seems like if you go there, you basically drop off the face of intl-quality CS work
2) What is the funding model generally (e.g. Gov Grants vs Industry partnerships/grants vs Nonprofits/External Sources like the Wellcombe Institute or Knight Foundation in the US)
3) What is the hierachy like in terms of research group? One thing I currently appreciate is in (at least the US univs I've been to), there tend to be many professors that will let you act as a senior-phd if you can prove skill rather than be subordinate / help other phd's gradute)
4) How important is advisor/field and what is their relationship? (In the US it's ok to go to a mediocre overall univ frequently if your advisor is "big" in that field -- is this similar?) From my understanding pulling something like this in China (i.e. Tsinghua, Peking, Shanghai Jiao Tong vs the rest) isn't really possible.
5) Is there funding and interest to go abroad for conferences? I would argue many conferences (in CS and Bio at least) tend to be North Americas-Euro Centric based? Also could you explain the large aversion to project failure? Research has failures by definition - only slight increments in progress isnt really a top tier paper or generally a best-paper/honorable mention award?
I didn’t mean to imply that nobody tries in Japanese university, of course, especially since I have no first-hand experience. I’d just heard that the culture is, in general, less rigorous than in Western universities.
The point about networking through professors is really interesting to me. Alongside other replies about the intensity of the job hunt for Japanese students, it does sound like the system is geared as a bit of a ‘hiring pipeline’—to an extent at least.
Note: I skipped out on attending university altogether, so I don’t have a strong sense for the extent to which Western universities differ in these regards.
0.https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/japan/2016-10-31/jap...
The reason is that while Japan tends to treat "westerners" quite favorably, it does not treat folks from developing countries nearly as well.
Japan is inviting many immigrants from developing counties -- ethnic Japanese from Brazil, undergrad and grad students from a variety of countries, laborers from a few low-cost Asian countries -- but this hasn't really had any positive long-term effects that I could see in terms of immigration. One problem is that these folks are treated like third-class citizens in their day-to-day lives (pay, prestige, news coverage, social treatment, etc.). This makes them feel not terribly welcome and sometimes a little bit scared (e.g., of being blamed with little recourse for a wrongdoing that a fellow countryman committed).
As a result of this treatment, many of the folks from these developing countries just aim for a money grab before they return to their country with a decent pile of f u money.
While many Japanese people I know and have known are interested in different cultures, they do not seem terribly interested in folding these cultures into Japanese culture melting pot-style. As such, I doubt that immigration will move the needle in terms of being a source of change in Japanese.
My only hope is that the youth of Japan get frustrated enough to have a 1960s-style social revolution that the US experienced (although focusing on slightly different vectors).
Source: Me. I was a professor in Japan in the past. I left because I witnessed the beginning of the universities failing (largely due to a massive lack of leadership), and I wanted to get out while the getting was good.
That's a pretty small-minded and dogmatic statement; it basically amounts to "copy US policy, it's the only way." At some point, someone in the world is going to actually have to solve the problem of stagnant or declining populations, without copping out and just importing new populations from elsewhere.
There's also a case to be made for culture, and preservation of unique ethnicity.
I'm sure they can decrease inflow at an appropriate time, but for now, they need fresh blood and fresh ideas.
These are two different things. Make the case for the latter.
You're right that income security (and status security, imho) would go a long way towards addressing the problem. That said, that digs much deeper into Japanese social issues -- for example, small business owners (e.g., small restaurant/bar owners, consultants, tech entrepreneurs, etc.) are often perceived as having lower social status than salarymen even though they sometimes make bucket loads more money. Folks in lower prestige careers have a harder time getting married, getting loans, moving into good neighborhoods, etc.
As such, the men who embrace the revolution are ipso facto marginalized in society.
Once Japan can embrace more individualistic careers more favorably, then I think their economy will be able to move forward more aggressively, and the "revolution" folks will have a more prominent and visible role in society.
How does immigration help? Say some people immigrate next year. They stick around. They become Japanese. Their children are (a) trained in the Japanese way and (b) find themselves subject to the same labor policy as other Japanese. What has changed?
Also japanese language (writing and reading) is very difficult for foreigners because one has to learn thousands of kanji characters.
... is how many people in the other parts of the world would view that position.
Maybe it's hard to understand for 'New World' people, who don't really have a sense of their own ethnicity, but it's very different elsewhere.
'Japan' is not so much a 'nationality' in the modern, Western sense.
'Japan' is the place where the 'Japanese' live.
The 'nation' of Japan is a legal construct around an ethnic group.
While I agree some degree of openness will definitely help the 'GDP' and on some other measures, it's important to grasp that other people will see it differently.
In new 'New World' - we generally focus on culturally secular measures, such as 'the GDP' i.e. a benchmark for the economy, which 'helps everyone' - and it avoids difficult socio-cultural arguments.
But almost everywhere else it's not like that.
I live in Quebec - and the Quebecois are an 'ethnic group' - and so politics here is totally different. We have state-sponsored child care for example - partly due to the very socialist political perspective, but partly because of the coherence of the community: it's really easy to get others to grasp the social benefits. They naturally seem themselves as part of a community, at least more so than the Anglo universe.
Why do you think more non-Japanese people in the country means the end of Japanese culture? I know many foreigners who live long-term in Japan and have absorbed many ways of working in the society. Why do you think they stay?
Ultimiately, the base belief behind the anti-multicuturalism position is that culture cannot/will not be learned.
Think about the trope of all the people moving to the US for the American Dream. Have they not accepted American culture? People move place for reasons beyond economics.
I think your example is more a case of the Protestant work ethic coming into play (people should help themselves)
It actually makes more sense with all the talk about the ai revolution.
People treat college degrees like their passports/certificates to get higher positions in society and better works. They are willing to study harder to enter colleges, and then play for 4 years in university.
It's about cultural problems, especially bureaucracy. It exists in asian blood. People would not like to face the truth, but obey the order. Maybe it's originated from Prussian education system and chinese bureaucratic system(former Roman Empire in Asian), and finally cause the failures of education and creativity.
Tightening job market drove students to study job-related certificates and tests such as Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). This is so grueling for young generations with grow student debts.
Students often defer their graduations to appear fresh in the job market. http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/south-korean-students-delayin...
This is playing identity politics at its worst. You're saying that a London based publication might have vested interest about things, and therefore somebody from a foreign country shouldn't care about their rankings at all.
You don't address how the rankings are formed, if they're accurate or not, or if they're useful in measuring the economic value of the graduates.
You also don't propose another ranking system/methodology/evaluation system. You're basically bringing nothing to the table except "Asia has an inferiority complex" which is a statement you don't back up with facts.
> London based
Essentially it's hard to get in, once you in, you pass. Work culture in Japan and school is a bit toxic.
As soon as their economy picks up, I bet that THE and others would start praising the virtues of the Japanese education system again, regardless of any changes (or no change) in education.
Japan had their real estate and stock market bubble in 1990. The Nikkei index reached nearly 40,000. People in Japan speculated that Japan would pass the US in GDP in a few years.
Then came the long crash.[1] The Nikkei index dropped all the way to 7000 by 2003. Then it recovered some, but crashed again in 2008. There's been considerable recovery since; it's now around 20,000. But that's still half of the peak.
(The US market is back above its all-time peak before the 2008 crash. It's probably overinflated, but not as badly as before 2008.)
Japan was the first country to hit the "postindustrial wall", or "what are all these people going to do"? I'd hoped they'd come up with a solution the US could copy. But the best Japan has been able to come up with is heavy spending on infrastructure to keep people busy.
[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/chart/%5En225?ltr=1#eyJtdWx0aUNvbG9...
Jobs are focused on shoe face, NOT on producing value.
What matters is not how good you are it is how many years you have put into the company working 80 hour weeks.
It is unsurprising to me that a culture not focused on producing value wouldn't produce much value.
The people I knew did this in order to improve their job security and/or job prospects. Basically, having a long list of largely meaningless publications was better received by tenure and hiring committees than making fewer but more substantive contributions. To use a baseball metaphor, they value through their actions the singles hitters more than the doubles or home run hitters.
The government is trying to encourage people to take more risks, but for most of the academics, it just doesn't make sense. The reward for good international-grade research is essentially zero, but the cost of going bust (e.g., a big project without strong publication outcomes) is perceived as being high (although I'm not sure it actually is).
Furthermore, the very best researchers are going to the US and Europe. Research labs there value their Japanese peers more than Japanese labs do in terms of both money and research prestige.
Analogous to how a strong domestic economy has impeded a need for better English education and international business skills.
And now they're stuck with the debt associated plus the ongoing cost of maintenance.