University Faces Mass Society Sharing No Common Value

   A law major at Tokyo University said he could not see any point in attending classes. At the law school, he said, “since it’s not a must to attend classes and all that matters is how you get yourself prepared for exams, attending classes doesn’t really mean anything. Honestly, it’s a waste of time.” Asked what he expects of university, the Tokyo student said, “University should provide time and place to students doing whatever they want to do.” In his case, he mixed with people on the outside of university in the course of extracurricular activities and, in retrospect, that’s what he prized most.


Free, Diversified Space
  “ University is a summer vacation in the four seasons of life, time when you meet all sorts of people,” said Yuusuke Hamano, a business administration major Hosei University. “At university, there is plenty of times to do anything you want,” said Hamano who is in his 5th year on the campus. 　 Hamano, who runs a business of distributing free loose-leaf notebooks carrying advertisements at the bottom, conceived the idea of starting a business during his travels to Southeast Asia. He said he made a lot of travels with money he earned on after-school jobs. In the developing countries, he saw a stark gap between the rich and poor, an experience which reminded him that he had a lot of opportunities in Japan. “I knew there were risks in starting a business,” Hamano said, “but, being a student, one can cope with a failure.” Being a student also gave him a chance to do an intern at a company run by a former student of the same university. They now share an office. “Human relationship was a great help,” he said.

  Hamano Yuusuke
He runs a company and also is Hosei student.



University as Medium
   Communication at university was different from the one on the Internet, said Makoto Ichikawa, EDITOR in chief of the “Waseda Bungaku” (Waseda literature) published by the School of Literature, who added, “because communication at university takes place in a limited space.” He said university is packed with various forms of intelligence?from universal and classical to contemporary. “University is a library or a magazine of intelligence,” he said. “University has a physical space packed with various people with various stories, which essentially collide,” Sato said.


Fading Value of University as Space
   Shinji Miyadai, professor of sociology at Tokyo Metropolitan University, said university had lost its value as the sole space for intelligence. “Now people can tap intelligence from anywhere they choose.” Miyadai said the development of the Internet and information society deprived university the position as the sole source of intelligence. The kind of university which needs to grow big to make a profit or university which has to make a profit to keep its organization intact was doomed, he said. “Needless to say, all those things are taking place against the backdrops of the Internet,” he said, “it has become very difficult to deal with the masses.” “Because the time when the masses shared the common life style is long gone,” he said. “Since there is no common ground, there is no common need,” the sociologist said. “That explains the mass media having a hard time maintaining their business model,” Miyadai said, adding, “instead, the kinds of activities which do not need to maintain huge organizations are easier to survive.” What is happening on the Internet is communication with a low coefficient of friction, according to Miyadai.He said the choice of university was no longer relevant. “You have a chance waiting for you, regardless of university,” he said.

  Shinji Miyadai
Professor of sociology at Tokyo Metropolitan University


Endless Pursuit of Learning
   Makoto Ito, lawyer and principal of legal prep school Ito-juku, said university was a period for the endless pursuit of academic learning, looking for answers which are difficult to find or non-existent. “University is where you come up with your answer to a quesiton with an unknow ansewr, and equip yourself with logic and words to persuade others," Ito said. “It doesn't matters what you pursue?academic learning, extracurricular activities, or love. Tackle them and develop your abstract thinking abilities,“ he said. “The important thing is,“ Ito said, “you come up with a specific goal and tell others about it." He said academic learning has no goal and what matters was said to be the process of its pursuit.


Encounter with Others and Step to Future
   Naoko Miura, a German literature major at Tokyo University, who also has a job as TV personality, said she made conscious efforts to meet people?ones with special knowledge or future possibilities?in the first two years on the campus. Communication with them helped her broaden her horizon and deepen her knowledge, the Tokyo senior said. “University is full of people and it’s important to touch each other, in addition to do studying,” she said. For her, university is a place to meet people and a place to make her dream come true. She wants to do translation or introduce German literature in her own way in the future.

  Naoko Miura
She is a student of Tokyo University and also has a job as TV personality


Finding Fun in Studying
   A freshman at Waseda’s School of Advanced Science and Engineering said, “Studying at university is fun and is also tied to my future dream. University is a place to study. Nothing more or nothing less.” The student of organic and inorganic chemistry said, “I have always been interested in science. Studying what I am interested in a lot of fun. I have reporting assignments, 6 times a week, making it nearly impossibleto do extracurricular activities or jobs. In future, I would like to continue with my research at a corporate research laboratory or something like that.” “University to me is a place to study, a place to make my dream come true,” he said.


Able People Useful for Society
  An official of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said university aims at character-forming education. “Obviously, it doesn’t mean just studying,” the official said, “it also requires communication capabilities, literacy and other basic capabilities necessary to be a member of the society, keeping in touch with others.” Meanwhile, an official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it expected university to educate students useful for business. The basic ability of a working adult, according to the ministry’s view, is not necessarily specialty in specific fields but rather is a commonly essential one.


Basic Academic Power Before Work
   How does university respond to that? An official of Waseda’s Career Center noted that students should have acquired the basic academic power through studying before they go out to work. The vocational consultant said, “Now that students have to start looking for jobs at a much earlier stage than before, they are hardly firmed up in thinking and hardly well educated. That’s not good.” “Well known companies apparently feel that only a small percentage of students is good enough for them. That’s why they like to hire good students before they are taken by other companies,” the Waseda official said. As a result, however, students have to decide on jobs more than a year before they actually start working. “Since they made job decisions so early, unsure about what they wanted, students begin to question whether they really wanted the jobs or there were better jobs available,” he said. The Career Center official said the job problem largely stemed from a lack of academic power on the part of students. Waseda offers open courses such as volunteering and hands-on farming in an effort to help students develop their communication skill which is hard to get through classroom studies. “Once you get a job, you are not going to have a luxury of time to study. You might as well do it now,” he said.


Answer Expectation Not Need
   Sociologist Miyadai said university had two missions?one was the education of opinion leaders and the other was the succession of intelligence. But, he said, university was fulfilling none of the missions. Miyadai said he was not the kind of teacher who answers the so-called need of students and society. “Most of the need, including students’ need for job hunting, is wrong,” he said.


University for All Students
   Unlike Miyadai, Rikkyo University has been pushing with a university reform plan to meet students’ need?lectures dedicated to get vocational qualifications and start new businesses and serve other purposes useful in society.


Universities at Three Levels
   Author Asaba said university was no longer a monolithic institution and should be categorized into three groups?elitist universities, specialist universities and mass universities?according to the T-scores. He said his remark may sound like a politically incorrect one but added that an illusion that all universities were equal prevents people from looking squarely at the reality.


6-Year University
   Former Education Minister Masajuurou Shiokawa, president of Toyo University, said he was in favor of a 6-year university system instead of four years. “In view of the fact that seniors haveto look for jobs in summer or autumn, four years are hardly enough to study,” he said. “Also, it’s too early to study major subjects in freshman and sophomore years as many universities do today,” he added. Shiokawa said university should be open to society. “University should not terminate its relationship with students upon their graduation. On their part, students should be able to come back to university to study more,” he said.

Masajyuurou Shiokawa
  He is a president of Toyo University and recommended 6-year university system


Study Again
   Kiyonori Ito, a 70-year-old employed by a medicare insurance company, had entered a correspondence course at Bukkyo University after he resigned from a semiconductor company at a compulsory retirement age of 60. “I did not know what to do and felt guilty for doing nothing everyday,” Ito said, When he joined young students in schooling a few times a year, Ito first felt he stood out like a sore thumb. But he soon learned to accept generation gap and to live with them. Ito obtained the national qualification for careworker and was also graduated from Bukkyo University.


Study at U.S. University
   Wei haochen, who was graduated from a Japanese high school in March 2009, is planning to study at Washington University in the U.S. He said he lost interest in studying at a Japanese university after he learned that university in Japan lacked the kind of freedom U.S. university could offer. “My high school teacher told me that university in America puts more emphasis on liberal arts education,” Wei said, adding, “American students freely start business and come back to university after taking an absence.” Startups have a better chance to succeed in the U.S. than in Japan, he learned. He said he was not serious about studying abroad at first, but the more he knew, the more interested he became. American students were said to be allowed to take two courses simultaneously. Some even took the MBA course while studying at undergraduate school. In fact, elite employees of banks and other companies in Japan often study at American business schools by company orders, bringing home MBA titles with them. Anyone who finished the first year of high school can apply for a university entrance examination, held eight times a year. Only English language and mathematics are required subjects. American university is said to be easier to enter than graduate. It is also possible to change university. Wei, who is studying to enter an American university in September, said, “It’s tough. But it’s a lot of fun.”


merican University as Business
   TIT’s sociology professor Hashizume said at first university of Europe was not a place to learn liberal arts but was a place for professional training. In the Meiji era, Japan created university after the European model. Harvard University in the U.S. was a university to train priests. People who were not interested in becoming professionals, such as priests, legal experts and medical practitioners, created the department of physiology (Ph.D.) consisting of natural and social sciences. But, Hashizume said, professional training did not require such studies. Liberal arts was added to university by accident, he said. So, what was expected of university was to give students degrees which are essentially a license to do business, he said. However, university degrees no longer play the vocational license’s role because university’s no longer respected. “You can use the degree only once in your lifetime,” Hashizume said, “when you apply for the job for the first time after graduation.” After that, nobody will ask to see it again. “Liberal arts is not something given by university but is something students have to learn by themselves,” he said.


University As A Label
   One of many with strong reservation about university being a place for learning, a student of the School of Liberal Arts at Tokyo University stated that university was just as good as its “label” or reputation. “I chose Tokyo University because it is the coolest. I wanted to stand out, with former high school classmates gasping in amazement. I expect nothing from university. I am studying but it’s just to earn credits, not for my future, not for research.” He spends time in an intercollegiate dance club and has a part-time job in a publishing company started by a university elder. Asked if he were having fun, he said no. “I kind of feel empty. It’s probably because I did not enter university to study,” he said.


University Is Status Symbol
   Keio University student Mariru Harada also works as a professional entertainer. She said a university degree would be a big help even in show business. Harada said she would like to spend campus life to gather materials which she would need to produce a piece of work called life. “Besides,” she said, “a university degree is a good status in a world as special as entertainment.” Some of major entertainment agencies do not sign up entertainers without a university diploma, she added. Harada said she was buying a social status at university, acquiring an added value in the form of university degree. Society trusts her for the degree she has and for the major she chose, she said. “University is an investment,” she said, adding, “it’s invisible but worthwhile.”

Mariru Harada
  She is a student of Keio University and also a TV idol singer


Don’t Treat Me as Half a Man
   Free loose-leaf company owner Hamano, who is on a yearlong leave of absence, said he was more of a businessman than a student but he intended to graduate from university. “If I had a diploma from Hosei, they would not treat me as half a man at the least,” Hamano said. Those with just high school degrees may not be treated, he said. He needs a university diploma to survive in business.


Degree as Vocational Title
   Sociologist Daizaburo Hashizume, a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, said since companies cannot judge students by a piece of paper called diploma, companies judge them by the name of university. So, on their part, high school students study very hard to enter good university, not to study at university. Once entered university, it is the end of the game.


Daizaburo Hashizume
  He is a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology.


Mitsui Says University Is Irrelevant
   Ayako Koyama, a human resources development official at Mitsui & Co., Ltd., said, “We don’t even look at university name when we interview applicants.” She said it’s part of the company’s efforts to recruit talented students. The company depends much on interviews for that purpose. Some students, without being asked, talk about their sports club and other activities, mentioning university names in so doing. But, she said, “We don’t pay much attention to it.” The trading company did not even require the English language and other qualifications as the prerequisite for hiring. Koyama said, “That can be done after joining the company.”


Name Doesn’t Guarantee Quality
   A Recruit Co., Ltd. official explained a changing corporate hiring tendency was saying that after changes in university entrance systems, such as Admission Office entrance, university doesn’t really represent what it did before and that on their part, companies now want to hire students with diversified talent. Hitomi Okazaki, the EDITOR in chief of the company’s“Ric Navi” and “Shushoku Journal” magazines, a graduate of Kyoto University, said corporate hiring practice has been constantly changing. Long before, when companies and students did not have much information about one another, companies used personal connections, such as acquaintance’s introduction, family connection and professor recommendation, for hiring. Then, Recruit opened a very successful recruitment site on Yahoo! Japan in 1996, boosting the number of applicants 10-fold for many companies. Since hiring costs and time jumped, companies had no choice but began to select applicants according to their universities, the Recruit official said.


Company’s Image Building
   However, author Kazuyuki Obata refute the companies’ claim that they no longer pay much attention to university name, saying, “It’s just their public stance, whitewashing.” Obata, who authored the “Kaisha Zukan (illustrative guide to companies)” in addition to its sister publication on university, said the companies were afraid that if it were leaked to the Internet that they hire students by university, their reputation among consumers as well as students would be damaged. He said university name is a yardstick more useful than anything else. “How else do you choose 100 among 10,000 and one among 100,” Obata said. He added that companies had learned from experience that it was a time proven method. “People talk about interviews. But what do you ask students? What a law student knows about his specialty may hardly be impressive in the eyes of interviewers,” Obata said. “It’s hard to tell interviewees are good or not,” he added. Obata said employers do not want to take a risk. “Companies depend on university name as part of hedging risks,” he said.

Kazuyuki Obata
  He has covered many universities and companies as a writer.


Age Matters in Tokyo Government
   Tokyo metropolitan government has an over-18 age requirement for employment but does not require a university degree. Ryuhei Kimoto, a chief recruitment officer of Tokyo government, a high school graduate, said, “An applicant’s academic or vocational record is irrelevant. Graduated or dropped out, it does not matter. So, Tokyo officials, be it university graduates or high school graduates, do the same jobs in terms of volume and content.” Kimoto said promotion tests also are linked to nothing but ages. At ages 22 to 24, anybody is qualified to take the Civil Servant Examinations I to be top elites. “I don’t think educational background has anything to do with work,” the official said, adding, “I feel difference between university and high school graduates only when university graduates start talking about their campus life. Then I feel a pang of regret.”


Research at Graduate School
   Kanako Kikuchi, a student of the science of agriculture at Tokyo University’s graduate school, said, “I entered the graduate school because I wanted to study. I told myself that university was going to be the last place for me to be able to study. So, I took many classes during my undergraduate days.” Kikuchi is now pondering if she should stay at university after the doctor’s course or find a job. Either way, she said, “I want to continue with my research.” Tokyo University was said to be a good place to do research, researchers given enough budgets, primarily donated by university alumni, much more than other national, public and private universities. A master only needs to take 10 credits in two years, giving her an ample time to do research.


University for Research
   In April 2004, the government made public corporations out of the previously national universities, at the same time cutting back on subsidies and make mid-term plans and later file evaluation reports. There were some criticisms of the reform that the government was trying to meddle with school matters. “Public corporations are independent from the government,” said an official of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, who added that university is free to spend its money. “Needless to say,” he said, “we will check later how the money was spent.”


Lack of Management at University
   “Japanese universities are not managed well,” Hashizume said, “so much so that they don’t know how to fund research.” He said the educational part of university was a service business paid for by its beneficiary, students. “However, the research part of university is an investment without much of a return to those who paid for it. So, private university will go bankrupt if it spent too much on research,” Hashizume said. Unlike university in the U.S. which gets private funding for research, university in Japan does not understand the mechanism. In Japan, he said, people working for university had no sense of crisis, somehow feeling that university will not go under. In the U.S., however, except for those who have made a significant contribution to university, people are all subject to possible severance.


Fundamental Change
   Author Takeshi Yoro, who spent 14 years as an anatomist at Tokyo University, opted to resign before the compulsory retirement. “The place of study moved from undergraduate school to graduate school,” he said, “university is no longer an ivory tower in the wake of the popularization of university.” Yoro said Tokyo University was, before the war, meant to educate bureaucrats. Hence the center of the university was the School of Law and School or Medicine, which trained people useful for the country. After the war, he said, Tokyo University changed dramatically. It went through a change from a European university to an American university. The postwar era destroyed Japan’s inherent ingenuity that made possible “Wakon Yosai” or the combination of Japanese spirit and Western learning without compromising Japanese spirit. University created graduate schools as an attempt to patch it up but it was hardly enough, he said. Today, he said, Japan will need to question the very fundamental system. “Japanese university stopped asking this. What is it doing and on what ground? What does university exist for?” he said.

Takeshi Yoro
  He studies anatomy and taught it in Tokyo University.

BY...
Akira Chiba
Akira Teshima
Atsunori Kanou
Aya Sakaguchi
Eita Shimokuwada
Hirokazu Maki
Hitomi Nakamura
Keiichirou Iwasawa
Keiji Mano
Keito Asamizu
Kentarou Watanabe
Kiei Aratame
Kizuku Kanno
Kouhei Takahashi
Mei Kimura
Miki Arai
Rikako Noguchi
Seima Ooyama
Shiho Shouji
Takeaki Hosokawa
Youhei Endou
Yuki Yoshida
Yuuki Oomori
Yuuta Satou