The end of my sophomore year

The past 7 months have been particularly challenging, because of the publishing of my paper on the strategic alliances between new ICT ventures and large traditional companies in Japan and South Korea. I was working on this paper with a professor from Oxford and a PhD student from France. Together with the professor, I presented our research at Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics conference in Kyoto last week. This was somewhat of a climax to my first ever published paper and hopefully a beginning of a productive academic career. Attending the conference as the sole undergraduate student among doctors, professors and innumerable distinguished speakers was an experience like no other. I have been invited to present the paper at another conference in Berlin and in Chicago, but I’m afraid the university funding would not be enough to cover the expenses, therefore I will have to pass.

Reflecting back on my work on this research, I truly felt a sense of immense pressure and I must admit that balancing weekly exams and many other assignments and tasks as well as my part-time job while working on the research was challenging to say the least. However, it was really a great experience, which sounds like a cheap excuse to my sleepless nights but I wouldn’t take it back.

And what awaits now? In mid July I will deliver a TEDx Talk speech at my campus’ independently organized TED Talk event. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, as I was advised to write my speech in English and in Japanese, but I will be delivering the speech in Japanese. I also had no idea that out of the 6 speakers, 4 of them would be graduates of Keio University, now CEOs and managers of large companies, and only 2 of us would be students. It is a daunting task to talk in Japanese in front of hundreds of people alongside some of the most successful businessmen in Japan, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

Now I’d like to focus on collaborating with a different professor on analyzing conflict prevention and global security as a way of pivoting my research focus. Apart from a new paper, I must focus on drilling my Korean language vocabulary to deliver my first ever speech in Korean as a part of my final examinations for the Korean class. But even before that, I have to compete in my first ever Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) tournament next week, which will be rather difficult considering I had no time at all to attend our weekly practices. Wish me luck, I think I’ll need it.