Keio students Active in Diverse Fields - 2023 Portrait -
2024/01/23
The public relations magazine "Juku" features a "Portrait" section that introduces the various activities of Keio students, mainly through photographs. This article is a reprint of articles published in "Juku" 2023 SUMMER (No. 319) and "Juku" 2023 AUTUMN (No. 320).
I Want to Take on Shakespeare's Works, Which I Continue to Study, as an ActorRen Komai, 4th-year student, Major in English and American Literature, Faculty of Letters
Ren Komai
Born in Hirakawa City, Aomori Prefecture, Ren Komai aspired to become an actor after watching the NHK morning drama "Amachan" in junior high school and began his acting career in his hometown. He later moved to Tokyo and entered the entertainment course of a private high school. He applied to Keio University through the admission by recommendation system. "If I hadn't been accepted, I was planning to devote myself to my acting career," he says. He fully enjoys student life, eating lunch with friends in the courtyard of Hiyoshi Campus and cultivating an interest in academic fields he had never known before through general education courses. Despite his busy schedule with movies, plays, TV dramas, and commercials, he says that coming to the university allows him to "just be myself." He is currently working on his graduation thesis in English on Shakespeare's tragedy "Titus Andronicus," and his eyes light up as he says, "I want to perform in a Shakespearean play myself someday."
(As of the time of publication in the "Portrait" section of the public relations magazine "Juku" 2023 AUTUMN (No. 320))
Creating 3D Chemistry Teaching Materials and Winning a Business ContestYunosuke Tsuda, 3rd-year student, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of PharmacyYotaro Kodaira, 3rd-year student, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy
Kodaira says he came to love chemistry in elementary school when his teacher explained the mechanism of ions with a diagram, which he found fascinating. Tsuda struggled with his university entrance exam studies and wished he could view molecular models on a digital device. The two met during a practical training course at the Faculty of Pharmacy and hit it off. They have "visualized" concepts that are difficult to understand on a flat plane, such as "crystal lattices" and "enantiomers," using 3DCG and have made them available on their website. The teaching materials cover a wide range, from elementary to high school students, and consist of about 40 units. "We hope to help students develop the ability to think about the essence of chemical phenomena, rather than just memorizing facts," they say. Last year, they also won awards in two business contests. In their spare time, they are still creating new teaching materials. "We're creating a system that uses avatars to allow users to enter a cell and learn about the process of creating proteins from DNA from a first-person perspective. We aim to release it within this year."
(As of the time of publication in the "Portrait" section of the public relations magazine "Juku" 2023 SUMMER (No. 319))
*Affiliations and academic years are as of the time of publication.