[No. 56] Yayoi Fujiwara

The world has changed considerably since I first entered university. Today, the achievements of Japanese astronauts are reported on TV daily, personal computers have become an indispensable tool in our daily lives, and the technological advancements in China and India are prominent. If I were to consider which university to attend now, I wonder what choices I would make.

Looking back, I didn't have a very firm vision for my future when I was in high school. I vaguely considered studying either literature or mathematics if I went on to university. When it came time to decide my path, I felt that mathematics was something I might only be able to study then. This, combined with the pragmatic idea that a science track might make it easier to find a job, led me to take the entrance examination for the Faculty of Science and Technology.

My university life, as cliché as it may sound, revolved around my studies, club activities, and a part-time job. In the Department of Mathematics, we only had laboratory experiments during our first year, but the content of all our courses was dense. My studies required a significant amount of time, and I did my best just to keep up with the pace of the classes alongside my very capable classmates.

The student club I joined was the Keio Computer Society (KCS). When I first enrolled, we were still in an era of using machines that booted DOS from 3.5-inch floppy disks. As part of our club activities, senior members taught us languages like FORTRAN and C. At the time, I never imagined I would end up in my current line of work. I was simply in awe watching my friends effortlessly create things like a computer fortune-telling program for our booth at the Mita Festival and CG animations. Since many of my friends were living in dorms or apartments, our main club activity seemed to be gathering at the student cafeteria on the Hiyoshi campus whenever we had free time to chat, go to karaoke, or go out for drinks. I still get together with these friends after graduation for various occasions, such as drinks and trips.

At a ski resort with my club mates

For my graduation research, I joined the Ito-Nakada Laboratory, supervised by Professor Hitoshi Nakada and Professor Yuji Ito (who has since retired), where I studied ergodic theory. It was an incredibly privileged research environment with two professors for only five students. All five of us in that cohort advanced to the master's program together, and we studied in the same laboratory for three years. I have fond memories of things like our seminar training camp at Professor Ito's villa in Kiyosato, where we stayed up all night drinking, and how both professors were so skilled at tennis that we students were completely outmatched. Later, one of the five of us proceeded to the Doctoral Programs to become a researcher, one became a teacher using their teaching license, and the remaining three entered the computer systems industry, where they continue to work today. In the process of writing my master's thesis, I came to realize that while mathematics is interesting and fascinating, achieving results is extremely difficult. This realization made me want a job that produced more immediate, tangible outcomes, which ultimately prompted my decision to find employment.

I currently work as a software engineer at IBM Japan. Specifically, I perform quality verification for internationalization on software products designed mainly for system management. This requires close communication with overseas development teams to conduct quality verification, and while the time differences and English communication skills are my biggest challenges, the experience of completing projects and sharing a sense of accomplishment with colleagues abroad whom I've never met—communicating via email, conference calls, and PC chat—is a motivating force that surpasses those difficulties. Due to the nature of this work, I also have opportunities to visit overseas Research Centers and Institutes. Since joining the company, I have been on business trips for about four weeks each to Italy, the United States, and Germany, conducting tests alongside the teams belonging to those Research Centers and Institutes. It was also fascinating and a great experience to see how engineers work and how projects are managed abroad.

Out in the working world, I've noticed that among the colleagues who joined the company at the same time as me, some have jobs that directly apply the specialized knowledge they gained as students, while others do not. Although there was a knowledge gap when we first started, it's a gap that can be bridged with personal motivation. I am content because I was able to pursue what I had wanted to study during my university days.

What I learned at university, along with the network of people I met there, forms the core of who I am today. I believe it's like a kind of fundamental physical fitness. For instance, someone who has played sports like volleyball or basketball for many years will improve at tennis much faster than a complete beginner to sports. Even now, I am required to learn many new things in various situations, and I feel that my methods of study and ways of perception are rooted in that foundation.

As an aside, there are surprisingly many Keio University graduates at my company. I often have lively conversations about our alma mater even with colleagues I've just met for the first time on a project. It is at moments like these that I'm glad I graduated from a good university.