”A great opportunity to explore the most relevant topics of your interest”

In our second year at PEARL we were given the option to join research seminars, but I could not decide then what specific topic I wanted to dive deeper into for the next two and a half years. The Independent Research Project provided the opportunity for me to decide on my own topic, combining my background experience as a foreign student in Japan with the realistic problems faced today during the global pandemic. The IRP provides so much freedom for its participants, it sets almost no boundaries to our choices in our topic, supervisor, and partners, and this was one of the most attractive points of the IRP that led me to decide on taking part in the program.

The most rewarding part of the project was that we were able to have regular one-on-one sessions with our supervisor, Professor John Ertl. Our topic was challenging in that it involved an ongoing event that added so many layers of uncertainty to the final product. As a result, we changed our topic several times throughout the year, and the regular group meetings allows us to bounce ideas off of one another. The meetings were also quite essential to the success of our final product. I remember so many times where my partner Niki and I were unsure of how to proceed with our topic, at which point professor Ertl will offer his suggestions on how we can improve and assure us we’re doing great.

We were originally both going to participate in the Independent Research Project, and after having a conversation on our prospective topics, we found out that we both wanted to look at cultural interactions in Japan and the influence from the pandemic. That’s how we decided to do a collaborative study. Working collaboratively ended up being much easier than I expected, since we always split our work equally beforehand, and helped each other in areas where we could. The collaborative nature of the study also allowed us to look at issues at hand through multiple directions, as we were able to take on different angles before coming together to discuss the discrepancies. In this way it added more completeness to the study.

The experience has definitely added on to my research skills and provided me with the essential knowledge on how to analyse problems with academic support, whether through organizing in-depth interviews, gathering historical literature, or finding supporting data. These will be important skills to carry with me into my graduate studies. The collaborative nature of the study also taught me how to work better as a team, through communicating effectively, and using the advantage of having a second perspective to every problem.

The Independent Research Project is definitely a worthwhile opportunity for anyone that wants to add a little challenge to their final years at Keio, especially for students interested in fields outside of Economics. I would recommend the program to anyone considering further studies in graduate programs, as it will provide you with the necessary skills and training that will be valuable for whichever field in your future research.