[No. 7] Nobutaka Takezawa

I believe my university years were the most meaningful time of my life. It was my first time living away from my parents and having a part-time job, and every day was fresh and exciting. Of course, the same was true for my studies (?), but what remains most vivid in my memory are the student experiments. We worked in pairs of two, assigned in alphabetical order. Being inefficient, I often took a considerable amount of time to get results, and sometimes the instructors stayed late with me. I also remember discussing the analysis of our results with my partner on the phone almost every night before the lab report was due. I lived in a dormitory and didn't have my own phone—this was, of course, before mobile phones—so it became a routine to spread my textbooks and notebooks in front of the public phone at the entrance, fighting off sleepiness to finish my reports.

The fields and content covered in the student experiments at the Faculty of Science and Technology were fascinating, and now that I am involved in research as a profession, I am once again amazed at their high quality. In my fourth year, when I was assigned to a laboratory, it was also a valuable experience to receive generous guidance from Professor Senna and Professor Isobe on everything from the details of experiments to the mindset of a researcher, all through my graduation research project.

In my dorm room

What I learned and experienced during my university years is still useful today, and I believe this is a result of studying at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University. Upon graduation, I joined the Tochigi Prefectural Government and am currently working at the Tochigi Prefectural Industrial Technology Center, where I am dedicated to the industrial development of Tochigi Prefecture through joint research with companies, commissioned tests, and technical consultations. In recent years, industry-academia-government collaboration has become essential in "monozukuri" (manufacturing). While I am unsure how much I can contribute from my position in government, I intend to take pride in being a graduate of Keio University and devote myself to my work.