"Japanese entrance examination"
Can you imagine what it is ? It is very competitive like "the Imperial examinations" in China. In USA, the most important thing for academic carrier is the final schools or degree. However, that is the result of entrance examination in Japan. If you tried to change school when you finish graduate school, some people express obvious disguise*1 though 40% of graduate school student in Tokyo University come from other universities. Changing school is sometimes even called "Gakureki-rondering (Academic-carieer laundering)*2". Of course, that completely come from Japanese narrow mind. Most of you know the good scientists whose undergraduate schools were a community college. Japan is not a bad country, but it sometimes has very negative and stupid aspects.
These days, companies tried to evaluate students based on their motivation or characteristics when they hirer people. However, success of entrance exam of undergraduate is still a important factor in Japan. I do not know the after school school in USA, but that is very common in Japan. If the famous high school in Tokyo, most of students go to other school after high school. I guess that no body experience such situation in USA.
"Tokyo University and medical schools are the most competitive exams in Japan.
Medical school of Tokyo University, Kyoto University and Keio University are the ultimate institution in Japan"
When I was junior and high school student, I entered one of the best school in Kyushu island. 30 or 40 students go to Tokyo university*3 and the same number of students pass medical school (you need to choose medical school when you have undergraduate exam!). Unfortunately, I was not capable of passing such representative institution though my university is one of the representative university in Japan. I once failed to pass the exam of another university and took a year before I pass the university.
Fail of exam was tragedy, however, fortunately, I did not lost my motivation to study. My advisor know the detail, but I succeeded in my study when I was a undergraduate school and maybe, graduate school though that is not so evaluated in Japanese society like the success of entrance exams*4. Japanese exams are so competitive that some of the students of representative institutions lost their motivation. I heard a lot of "drop out" of alumni of my high school, but I never heard "skipped his forth grade".
One of the intention of my hard study was to enter some representative institution in USA because research environment in Japan is not so good. Most of faculties of universities cannot spend their time for research and do not publish so much. If you check their list of paper in ISI, some researcher do not publish at all or I should not call them as "researcher".
However, I cannot find some good researcher in famous institution of geothermal research community. If you want to pursue "conventional geothermal energy", you may choose Stanford or University of Auckland. My intention was not like them.
I was looking for some researcher whose research interests are magma, shallow structure, hydrothermal system,SEISMOLOGY*5. You may find some researcher whose research interests is similar to that, but I preferred to scientists who had been publishing (like Nature, Science, JGR etc) good jobs*6.
Fortunately, I could find good advisers who have too large project for a student like me whose major was not geophysics. My current advisors has fantastic quality and amount of data which I could not expected in Japan. Moreover, I could ride on R/V Langseth, a famous large seismic experiment research vessel. I cannot imagine how many people can experience such a large experiment like ETOMO with fantastic researchers.
"Everything happen in my life, but I never expected to take part in such a huge science project! Yeah!"
In addition, my another adviser had very large project of unconventional geothermal energy. As long as I know, that is one unique challenge in the world. It seems I am very lucky in total.
In our life, you have a lot of fortunate and unfortunate. However, all we can do is for future. You owe everything in your current situation and you can do something as long as you never give up. Some of children who want to be a scientists give up their dream because of various situation. I still can pursue my career as a scientist though it is not so easy. I think I am in the best part of my life and it will always be better than the past.
"After all... Tomorrow is another day!"
*1:Actually, some of faculty in my previous department disguised my intention of study abroad!
*2:This expression does exist in Japanese wikipedia though you cannot find the same meanings in other languages
*3:The top institution in Japan. Prof. Kei Aki and Hiroo Kanamori are famous alumna for all of gephysisists.
*4:Unfortunately, PhD is not so evaluated in Japan. The best degree for science of engineering majors is master, not PhD
*5:Seismology is the most important technique for measurement of magma
*6:World class
