The self-discipline that led him to the path of organic chemistry. Contributing to the real world with knowledge gained from ambitious research.

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From Osaka Toin High School, a private school in Osaka Prefecture

With the sole desire to "engage in some form of research at a top-tier university," he spent his three years of high school immersed in studying for entrance exams. He says that learning the essence of what it means to learn from a Juku teacher he met at the time is still beneficial to his current research. It was precisely because the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology allows students to choose their department after experiencing experiments in various fields that he rediscovered his fascination with organic chemistry, a subject he had been interested in since high school. Now in his second year of the master's program, he is conducting research on magnets using organic compounds. We spoke with him, who plans to take on a research position at a manufacturer after graduation, about his journey from high school to the present.

[*] Academic year at the time of the interview (August 2022).

My high school was the kind of school where you started studying for entrance exams right after enrolling, so I was immersed in studying for 13 hours a day, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. I didn't join any clubs and even went to school on Sundays to study on my own, so my mother worried that I wasn't acting like a typical high school student (laughs). But for me, I had a strong desire to get into the highest-level university possible to place myself in a better environment and engage in some kind of research. I also had a strong competitive spirit, which I think ultimately pushed me to work desperately on my exam studies. There were times I struggled because my grades wouldn't improve, but I was always conscious of improving the quality of my studies, not just the quantity, asking myself, "What do I want to gain from solving this problem?"

Since I'm from the Kansai region, there were good universities around me, but when it came to private universities, I felt that none could match Keio and Waseda. So, I started looking at universities in the Kanto region and decided to take the entrance exams for universities in Tokyo, both national and private. My older sister had also moved to Tokyo to attend university, so I had no reservations about leaving my hometown, and I thought she could help me if anything came up.

In the end, I didn't get into my first-choice university, but when it came to deciding which private university to attend, I chose the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology without hesitation. The School System[*], which allows students to enter without deciding on a specific department, is unique to Keio and I was drawn to this distinctive system.

[*] The School System is a unique system at the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology where students choose one of five "Schools" at the time of the entrance examination. After enrollment, they gradually narrow down their field of study according to their interests and concerns, and decide on their department when they advance to the second year. Note that the School System was changed for students entering the Faculty of Science and Technology in the 2020 academic year, and some of the departments that can be entered from each School have changed. For details on the School System, please refer to the link below.

When you exchange opinions about studies or research with students in the Faculty of Science and Technology, they give you new perspectives that you didn't have before. I was also struck by the fact that there were a certain number of students who had dedicated themselves to club activities or competitions without studying much for entrance exams, having walked a different path from my own. I felt that many students possessed strong critical thinking skills, rather than the kind of intelligence that can be measured by numbers like exam performance or deviation scores. Also, with about 1,000 students in the Faculty of Science and Technology alone, the student body is very large, and you gather with different members for each class, so I think it's an environment where you can befriend many different people. I also met friends from my hometown who were also living alone, so I was able to settle into university life quite smoothly.

In high school, I attended a private Juku, and the teacher I met there was someone who believed in "thinking from first principles," and through his guidance, he taught me not just how to study for university entrance exams, but the very essence of learning, which connects to my current research. I liked his way of thinking, so I wanted to do research that would utilize that "way of learning" in some form. In high school, I was most interested in organic chemistry, but that was based on classroom learning. I wanted to choose my department after experiencing experiments in physics, chemistry, and biology, and in the end, chemistry was the most enjoyable experiment for me, which was the deciding factor in choosing the Department of Applied Chemistry. Physics was difficult to grasp in the real world because it's a micro-world, and conversely, I wasn't very drawn to biology, which is macro, but chemistry has aspects that connect to both. I find it interesting how micro-level phenomena come together to form the macro-level world.

Students join a laboratory from their fourth year of undergraduate studies, but until the third year, they learn the fundamentals of inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. Once you enter a lab, things suddenly become specialized, but learning the basics even in fields you don't handle helps deepen your expertise, so I'm glad I was able to learn broadly over three years. Another feature is that about 90% of graduates from the Department of Applied Chemistry go on to graduate school. Most of my friends from my undergraduate days also went on to master's programs, and because of that, casual chats like "What are you doing with that equipment now?" can sometimes lead to discoveries in measuring the physical properties of a failed compound, unexpectedly overlapping with my own research. There are many students with a strong motivation to study, and I think the rate of students advancing to graduate school is high compared to other science and engineering universities.

I am conducting research on the "Development of Ferromagnetic Organic Materials by Aggregation of Radical Molecules Utilizing Hydrogen Bonds." To put it very simply, it's research aimed at creating magnets from organic compounds other than metals. Electrons orbit the outermost shell of an atom, and to create a magnet, we use the magnetic moment derived from the electron's spin. The magnetic moment of individual electron spins is weak, so we regularly aggregate molecules called radicals, which have electron spins. We use hydrogen bonds to aggregate radical molecules and synthesize new molecules by attaching a trifluoromethyl group, which contains highly electronegative fluorine atoms, to control the form of molecular aggregation at the nanoscale level. A characteristic of the "Laboratory of Organic Functional Materials Chemistry" is that for my research theme, we don't just mix reagents; we start by gathering evidence that the electron spins are likely to align.

Things often don't go well, and there have been times when I've had to give up, but I think it's also important to record the failed results as data and pass them on to future generations. Currently, magnets made only of organic compounds only function at minus 270 degrees Celsius, so the road to practical application is long, but it is an ambitious research project that has been passed down through generations using crystal engineering and computational science.

It was the "Financial Literacy" class I took as a general education course in my fourth year of undergraduate studies. I spent an extra year studying for exams, so when I was a fourth-year student, my friends from back home were in their first year of work. After they graduated, they all started talking about "NISA, NISA," and I had no idea what that was (laughs). At that time, there was a finance class available, and since everyone around me was talking about it, I thought it would be necessary for me too when I became a working adult, so I chose to take the class to learn about its mechanisms and benefits.

While highly specialized university classes are significant academically, you have to proactively seek out classes that are directly connected to daily life. By taking a finance class, which provides essential knowledge for entering society, I was able to improve my own literacy. I feel that it is beneficial in my current life as well.

The experiments I conduct involve using special equipment to measure magnetism and handling chemicals, so I was on standby at home until mid-June 2020. This happened right after I entered the lab in my fourth year, so I felt very frustrated. Also, during the pandemic, presentations at overseas academic conferences were canceled, so unfortunately, I never had the chance to participate during my time at the university. However, after the shift to online classes, research actually became easier to conduct. Previously, I had to stop my research midway to attend classes, but with online classes, some courses only required watching a video and submitting an assignment by a deadline. I was grateful that I could watch the videos when I had a break from my research, allowing me to be flexible and focus on my work.

I want to continue being involved in chemistry, so I plan to take a research position at a manufacturer where I have received a job offer. The research I'm currently doing is challenging and interesting, but there's also a possibility that it won't yield results. In that respect, at a manufacturer, I'll be able to prioritize research on things with a high feasibility, so I want to create something that everyone can use and feel that I'm making the world a better place. Recently, manufacturers have been promoting DX[*], but my laboratory is the only one that thoroughly uses the necessary computational science in its research. I believe that this experience and the lab's approach of thinking for oneself will be valuable after I start working. [*] DX: Abbreviation for Digital Transformation. It refers to bringing about transformation in the business world by utilizing data and digital technology.