Student interview: Yiwen Li of AMC

When asked about her student life, Yiwen Li cheerfully told us about every relevant topic. Since biochemistry was her research focus at high school, she was able to quickly decide to apply to AMC at Tohoku University. “As is known, Tohoku University’s chemistry department is prestigious!” she smiled. Then after she entered, she discovered more good sides of the department. First there was the equipment: there are many laboratories fully equipped with the latest tools. If you go to Katahira campus, you will find modern buildings such as the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics, and WPI- AIMR Main Building. The second is the personal side: she has already had a lot of chances to share time with the skilled staff and experience their assistance during her research and experiments. One of the university’s mottos is “Research First,” and her story was true to this motto.

Yiwen Li

 According to Yiwen, professors profoundly care about students, and there is a special program called the “Homeroom Section” which was started by the AMC course. There are three professors and two student mentors exclusively for AMC students, and they share time and talk with them at a special room prepared for them on Katahira. “The topics we chat about there have such a variety” she says, “about everyday life, questions that came up through lectures, scholarships, and even Japanese food culture… anything!” Taking time for communication nurtures the students' social nature and capability for problem-solving. For her, Sendai is quite international like Shanghai, her home town, and everyday life is full of discovery.

 Yiwen is truly a science girl, so she enjoys any subjects concerned with math and science. Asked about other fun classes, she named two—business management and health. “Particularly the subjects that Prof. Nagatomi deals with at health class tend to be hotly-debated among students since they are familiar subjects like sleeping, diseases and radiation,” Yiwen said.

 Recently she has been trying to learn foreign languages like Thai and Indonesian. Going out downtown with other students, sharing cultural food with them, tackling the tasks from the professors with classmates…her interests go beyond science, and all of them will, like a chemical reaction, interact with each other resulting in the creation of her own original research field.

“Smart Work Week” with Netherlands

 Tohoku University’s School of Engineering will hold another interesting event on Wednesday January 22. This event became possible thanks to the cooperation of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The lecture will be on the theme of “Smart Networks and Reconstructing the Tohoku Area” at Center Hall on Aobayama Campus (where Prof. Koichi Tanaka will give another lecture on Jan 29).
 Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, is called one of the world's Smart cities. The definition of smart city is a place where people can live comfortably thanks to a smoothly operating ICT infrastructure. The targeted subjects of infrastructure include not only hardware like transportation systems and the water supply, but also software for education, medical services and disaster prevention. The Netherlands has solved various infrastructure problems with a unique method called the “Dutch Approach.”
 On the day of the event, panelists will participate from many notable companies in the Netherlands such as Amsterdam Smart City, DNV KEMA, Green it, Phillips, Quby and so on. The Tohoku area is still far from completing reconstruction, so the talk by panelists from the Netherlands will include many good and useful clues and hints for a better Tohoku.
 The event will be held both in Japanese and English, so international students can enjoy the talk for sure. You can take the information back home, and apply it to your own country!

Lecture by a Nobel laureate, Prof. Koichi Tanaka

  On January 29^th, a visiting professor, Koichi Tanaka, will give a lecture on the 2^nd floor of Center Hall on Aobayama Campus from 13:00. Prof. Tanaka is one of Tohoku University’s alumni. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002. At that time, he was a corporate employee at Shimadzu Corporation contributing to technology research, and he is still affiliated with the company. His lecture will be held on the theme of “environments for interdisciplinary research—developing mass spectrometry”

Thanks to the prize, he has taught at many prestigious universities in Japan so far. This is a rare chance to meet a Nobel laureate and hear his story. The lecture will be in Japanese, and will be aimed at Master’s level students. However, if you are interested in joining the event you can register your name by writing the School of Engineering at event@eng.tohoku.ac.jp .

 

 For more information, please click here.


Map of the venue on Aobayama Campus

 

Happy 2014!!

The new year of 2014 has started. The university reopened this week, and students started to prepare for the semester-end exams and final papers. In the high schools, there is a tense atmosphere as students have entered the season of university entrance exams. On January 18 and 19, the National Center Test for University Admissions will be held across Japan. It is a standardized national exam that must be taken by applicants who wish to enter governmental universities, and Tohoku University will be one of the test venues.

In Japan, people who have something they wish strongly to achieve usually go to shrines and pray for success. There are also people who visit shrines to ask for perfect health and safety for family members. For such people, there will be an annual event on the evening of January 14. It will be at Oosaki Hachimangu Shrine. The name of the event is “Matsutaki Matsuri.” It is a kind of bonfire festival. The shrine is not far from Kawauchi Campus, so Tohoku University students can easily attend the event. There, you can encounter an intense fire of tremendous scale made by burning New Year’s decoration, talismans and so on. Legend has it that your mind and body will be cleansed if you stand close to the fire.

Just before ignition

After the ignition (photo from 2013)

 Sometimes it is hard to tell shrine from temple, but the fundamental difference is that while temples are associated with heaven after death, shrines are associated with life on earth. We wish you a happy new year for 2014!