November 21, 2011 at 2:01pm
Notes on Studying at Kyoto University
I will be attending the Study Japan! Fair at Bonn University on the 7th of December, and talking to students about life at Kyoto University.
In order to prepare, I’ve written notes on things I might be asked by students. I’m publishing them in case they are useful to people.
Bear in mind this information is correct only as far as I know, please double-check by reading the relevant materials yourselves.
I will continue updating this as I find more information and prepare for the event.
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at benhumphreys@gmail.com
Department
- Graduate School of Informatics at Kyoto has a large number of research areas
Labs
- List of groups/labs
- I am focussing on language processing
- There are three laboratories that deal directly with language processing:
- Kurohashi-Kawahara lab in general uses a more grammatical, tree-based approach to language analysis
- Kawahara lab focusses more on using mathematical models
- Okuno & Ogata lab deals with speech processing and robotics
My Research
- I am a first-year doctoral student and thus I have not completely decided on my research area
- I am currently researching evaluation of Japanese machine translation
- I am trying to create an algorithm that can give a score to a Japanese sentence produced by machine translation system, by comparing it to a reference translation produced by a human
Lab Daily Life
- Each laboratory is different, but in general it’s like this:
- Weekly group meetings where some people in the group present their research progress
- There may be smaller group meetings which focus on a specific research area
- For example within Kurohashi-Kawahara lab, we have a general meeting with everyone, then split up into machine translation and information retrieval groups
- There are some meetings for introducing research papers - students take it in turns each week to present a paper that they think is interesting
- There are study groups that go through parts of textbooks and cover more difficult topics
- Some one-to-one meetings with your supervisors
Japanese Language
- The level of Japanese required varies between laboratories
- Most laboratory professors speak English well enough that communication with them will not be a problem
- Some laboratories
- Technically Japanese is not required to join laboratories, but Japanese is often used within the lab
- People may discuss some things in Japanese as after all it is their native language and easier for them
- Presentations are typically in Japanese, but use slides that are written in English
- There are usually a few non-Japanese researchers in each laboratory
Master’s
- 2 years
- Classes are required
PhD
- 3 years
- Not required to take classes
- Possible to take classes within your department
- Courses are the same as those offered to Masters students
Admission Procedures
Life in Japan
General
- People speak a little English, they are very helpful and will try to help
- Paperwork is often only available in Japanese
- Kyoto University foreign students division will help you with any paperwork you may have to fill in (creating a bank account, phone contract etc)
Safety
- Other than the two mentioned below, Japan is incredibly safe, you can walk around at any time of the night in any area and feel safe
- Bear in mind that the news outside of Japan often reports only the most extreme parts of the disaster, and while it was a horrific event, the majority of Japan is not directly affected
Nuclear
- Kyoto is 500km away from the Fukushima power plants
- In Kyoto the earthquake was less than magnitude 2, and most people did not feel it
- Kyoto is unaffected by the radiation directly
- Even Tokyo, which is much closer to the reactor is not very affected
- The major risk while living in Kyoto is from food which could have come from the affected area
- Most food is labelled with its origin, so it’s possible to avoid some things that are fom Fukushima
- However not all food is labelled, and when eating out it is not clear where the food is coming from
- I think the risk is relatively low
Earthquakes
- Earthquakes do happen in Japan, it’s a part of life
- The vast majority of the time they are so small you barely notice
- When you do notice, they are not strong enough to do any real damage
- Even the ones that are scary, and may knock things off shelves are not strong enough to hurt you
- It’s simple to take precautions to avoid getting hurt:
- Make sure you don’t put heavy objects on high shelves, brace bookshelves against the ceiling so they do not fall over
- Have emergency rations (water, tinned food) in your apartment/dorm
- You get used to it :)
Life in Kyoto
- City is relatively small when compared to Tokyo or Osaka
- Can cycle from university, dorms to the ‘city centre’ within 20 minutes, or take the city bus
- However it is still a city, large enough for everything you might need
- Osaka is less than an hour away by train, costing ~800 yen return
- Tokyo is 2.5 hours by bullet train (17,000 yen one-way), or ~6000 yen for an overnight ~7 hour bus
Life in Dormatories
- Dormatory details
- All students coming from abroad are able to apply to live in dormatories
- I’d recommend that you live in dormatories at least for the first year
- It’s a lot cheaper - 10,000 yen a month compared to +50,000 yen a month for an apartment
- You’ll make friends more easily
- It’s easier to apply for dormatories while living outside Japan
- Students have their own rooms, people have little events, the dorms are fairly clean
- There are some dorms that are relatively far away from university - a 40 minute train ride
- Other dormatories (e.g. Shugakuin) are close enough to cycle to university
Kyoto University
The Campus
- Kyoto University is split into a few different campuses
- Yoshida is the ‘main’ campus, there are also campuses in Katsura and Uji
- Your location depends on your subject
- As far as I know, informatics is primarily in Yoshida
- There are free shuttle busses between campuses, taking between 20~40 minutes depending on traffic
Student Activities
- There are a variety of clubs and circles - clubs are more serious, circles more casual
- There are two festivals in the year where clubs and circles set up stalls and try to recruit new members
Study
Japanese Lessons
- Foreign students have to spend 6 months taking Japanese lessons
- Lessons are divided roughly into 3 levels, ranging from complete beginner to someone who knows all joyo kanji.
- You are placed based on an initial placement test (but it’s possible to change later)
- There are a wide variety of subjects available - Kanji, conversation, reading, grammar composition, research presentations, listening to news
- You are free to choose your subjects
- You’re required to take between 8 and 10 subjects
- Classes takes up a couple of hours a day
- The classes have between 5 and 20 people in them (mostly around 10)
- Homework isn’t too strenuous - but you get out what you put in
- After the first 6 months, it’s possible to continue taking Japanese classes, as many as you like
General Classes
- See section on PhD and Masters in Research
Other
MEXT Scholarship
- All tuition fees are paid
- Monthly stipend of ~15,000 yen
- Application is very competitive
- Write a research plan
- Look for other documents online dealing specifically with recommendations on this
