[No. 178] Miho Nakashima

I am honored to have been given this opportunity to write for the Jukuin Raiou (Keio University Alumni Relay Column).

I studied mathematics at Keio University for six years. I am now in my fifth year of working and am engaged in work related to natural language processing at an IT company.

I first chose to pursue the sciences when I entered high school. I was disappointed that the humanities classes had less time for math, so I chose the science track. Although I liked mathematics, it wasn't the only science subject I enjoyed. My love for reading grew, and I became interested in Japanese words and kanji, even reading dictionaries. I also liked classical literature, and I remember finding a small newspaper article about the author of "The Tale of Genji," which piqued my interest so much that I went to ask my Japanese language teacher about it.

When it came to university, I wasn't thinking about employment; I just wanted to study. A major reason I chose mathematics was the influence of my father, who was a math teacher, and the opportunities I had to engage with university-level mathematics since junior high school.

My father not only helped me with math homework I didn't understand but also taught me the joy of solving problems, such as by checking my reasoning when I arrived at the correct answer using a different method than the model solution.

My junior high school math teacher also introduced me to a math seminar for high school students organized by university students studying mathematics in Fukuoka and Tokyo. Even though I didn't fully understand the formulas being silently written on the whiteboard, the sheer passion of their interest and the "world of the unknown" were very appealing.

In the Faculty of Science and Technology, students officially decide on their department when they advance to their second year.

Until I advanced to the Department of Mathematics, I had never actively studied mathematics beyond the textbooks. I remember feeling a bit scared and anxious during classes exclusively for mathematics majors after advancing, as the conversations of my classmates around me sounded very advanced. Of course, the lectures never presupposed knowledge beyond the textbooks, and I became friends with those same classmates who had seemed intimidating. After lectures, they would teach me what I didn't understand, using the blackboard at the front of the classroom.

Unlike in high school, I started reading related books to understand and internalize the knowledge gained in lectures. It was still difficult to grasp everything, and the things I didn't understand grew at a much faster rate than my knowledge, which was challenging, but that too was enjoyable.

As I studied mathematics, I became more interested in language. In mathematics, you define notations and then write formulas and construct theorems and proofs according to those definitions. Language also defines the correspondence between "things" and "words" and arranges words according to grammar to construct meaningful sentences. Fascinated by the similarities between mathematics and language, I wanted to study the language I use casually every day as an academic discipline, so my general education courses were mostly related to linguistics.

I also took the teacher training course as one of my options for future employment. I was able to learn various methods of "how to communicate," and that knowledge is useful in my current work.

As an aside, students in the Faculty of Science and Technology generally only attend the Hiyoshi or Yagami campuses. Thinking that since I had entered Keio University, I should make the most of it, I created a day once a week in my fourth year of undergraduate studies dedicated solely to teacher training courses at the Mita Campus.

After joining a laboratory, I gave weekly presentations in a seminar on books I had read, with senior and junior students present. There were no classmates from my year in my lab, but occasionally, professors from other labs in the same field would invite me to participate in seminar camps and research meetings. The way seminars and presentations were conducted varied completely from lab to lab, and while I was often bewildered, I became more conscious of how to communicate my ideas effectively.

I would also like to briefly introduce my current job. My main duties involve developing software for data analysis of "natural language," such as spoken language and handwritten text, and providing consulting on analysis.

Natural language processing is a fundamental technology for enabling computers to handle natural language. For example, while it is easy for humans to identify which words are in a sentence, various technologies are required for a computer to be able to extract them.

In recent years, with the development of deep learning technology, the techniques for handling natural language are also advancing daily. It is a very interesting field that uses technology based on a background in mathematics to handle language.

Until about my third year as a working professional, I was fully occupied with just getting used to my duties. By my fourth year, however, I had a little more leeway and was able to start studying new technologies and related fields. It was then that I came across the research paper that was the source of the small newspaper article I had read in junior high school. You never know where you'll find a connection.

Looking back, I realize that I have always chosen to do what I love.

At every turn, I was helped by my peers and professors. I am also very grateful to my parents for supporting me in the environment of university learning.