My Graduation Thesis Experience

Tatsuki Saima
English Studies

I had always been interested in Japan’s security, and so I took international relations courses such as Foreign Policy, Comparative Politics, and History of International Politics, which taught me the fundamental concepts and history of international politics. For my graduation thesis, I investigated the questions and answers in the Diet regarding Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, organizing the information by timeframe and topic to look at the shifts in Japan’s security policy. Just two years earlier, I would never have imagined that I would not only be focusing my studies on politics—of which I hardly knew anything—and history—which had been my major weakness—but that I would even choose those areas for the theme of my graduation thesis. Of course I struggled as a result, but I was able to continue my studies for two reasons. The first was the high degree of freedom. Because there were no compulsory subjects to take, I was able to study the areas that interested me in the way that I wanted to. The second was that it was fun. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was when I was able to gain a scholarly understanding of the interactions between one nation and another, which up until then had seemed like nothing more than facts and incidents. (I am not an exceptional student though, so I don’t mean anything over-profound when I say “understanding.”) To those of you who might be hesitating, thinking, “I’m vaguely interested in international politics, but I don’t know anything about it…” I would definitely recommend that you try international relations studies.

2009 graduate of Faculty of Foreign Studies;
currently working at JETRO; Thesis title: “Fair Trade as a Poverty Reduction Tool”