Voices from students

OTA, Aoba

The English Based Science and Engineering Programme allows students to learn bioscience in a multicultural environment. Not only are the students from various educational upbringings, the professors are also from diverse academic backgrounds, providing students with a unique opportunity to learn in varied educational styles with an international educational approach. In addition, being in an environment with a diverse group of students, we are exposed to peers with different strengths and weaknesses which allows us to share our knowledge and learn from one another. I can confidently say that this is something that would not have been accomplished outside of EBSE. Not only this, but throughout my years in EBSE, I was able to further my English skills and expand my horizons by working and communicating with students from contrasting backgrounds, perspectives, and values. In addition, the EBSE programme offers the opportunity for students to take minors. Therefore, not only are we educated in the field of our speciality, but we are also able to incorporate other fields of expertise into our majors. For instance, I have been taking courses in Computer Science and I hope to integrate the knowledge I gained from data analysis into my biology research in the future. Thus, I believe that receiving interdisciplinary education as part of the EBSE programme will shape students into a more accomplished researcher and a competitive candidate in the job market. Furthermore, the classes at EBSE are held in small groups and allow students to communicate with the professors more easily. Also, due to the small-sized groups, classes are less lecture-based and instead, are comprised of students actively asking questions and sharing different approaches to certain problems. This enables students to be an active participant in class and learn to think critically. The 4 years we spend at university is an important stage in our lives as the quality of education we receive in those years has significant influence on our future careers. Waseda’s English Based Science and Engineering Programme allows students to learn in a multicultural and interdisciplinarily diverse environment and I strongly believe that this programme has enabled me to gain skills that I would not have been able to attain anywhere else.

LIN, Chia-ling

I am a student from Taiwan. Bioscience has been an intriguing field to me since junior high, and I always hoped to use the global lingua franca, English, to explore this field. Waseda University provides such English courses of bioscience and other subjects for students from all over the world. Although study in English would be a challenge to me, I was always ready for challenges. Waseda provides a multilingual study environment for students. Besides gaining new knowledge, I made many friends from different countries. By communicating with them, I learned diversified cultures in their countries, which broadened my vision; I also learned from their learning techniques and made my study more efficient. It is undeniable that learning bioscience in a language that is not my first language is difficult. Nevertheless, such pressure refines me and makes me a better person.