My Graduation Thesis Experience

Anna Shiromizu
French Studies

In my junior and senior years in the faculty, I took the comparative sociology seminar within the international relations minor. In the seminar, the attitude was, “Think about it and research it yourself and come up with your own conclusion,” so we were always asked to study and research proactively. Everyone cooperated, but the work was really difficult—coming up with questions; discussing the research methodology and main points, which took a lot of time; and using existing research, interviews, and statistical data to come up with the answers to those questions. However, I gained a tremendous sense of accomplishment by working on my own from start to finish to see it through not just as a report, but as a project. In my junior year, I studied “Citizens’ motivations for holding film festivals: An international comparison” and “The recovery that the citizens of Rikuzentakata want,” while in my senior year I examined “The prospects for shopping districts.” For my graduation thesis, I carried out a comparison of France and Japan on the theme of “What is interesting about manga?” Having lived in France during my high school years, I knew that Japanese manga are well received there, and I found that interesting. It was a really inspiring method of learning for me to create a problem from a theme that I am interested in and make that into an academic study. Through the seminar, not only did I gain knowledge, of course, but I was also able to learn about debating, conducting research, and presentation methodology, and to discover the true fascination of studying.

2012 graduate of Faculty of Foreign Studies