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Curriculum Policy

Curriculum policies- Educational content & methods -

This Graduate School reconceptualizes the issues of global society through a spectrum of mutually interlinking keywords, summarizes these into six object domains and establishes these as “courses”, the basic units of education.

For undergraduates, in addition to the main course of their specialist field, there are also compulsory sub-courses to be studied. The objective of studying the sub-courses is to broaden perspectives on global society, and to become able to locate the main specialization of study within a broader context. In doing so, we aim to provide an integrated interdisciplinary education which is the goal promoted by this Graduate School.

The doctoral program places high value on further deepening the specialization that was acquired through the interdisciplinary education received in the Graduate Schools’ master’s program, and students develop their individual research projects while taking only classes offered in their main course. Note that for student’s progressing onto the doctoral program, the integrated interdisciplinary education will have been enforced through designating some of the “common subjects” offered in the master’s programs compulsory.

Subjects Organization
Master’s program:

The “common subjects” that comprehensively cover various issues of global society and the academic research techniques to investigate those issues are compulsory for students of all courses. This is in order to resolve problems facing today’s global society while critically scrutinizing and reconsidering the framework that has been the conventional basis of the academic field. In other words, by studying “global society field work methods” and “foreign language writing subjects,” students learn practical research techniques and acquire international communication skills enabling them to play an active role on the stage of global society. “Tutorials” and “individual research supervision” will assist students in developing their unique research abilities. Furthermore, the course offers interdisciplinary introduction lectures as “foundation subjects” in line with the main themes of the six courses, in which students gain a new understanding of various problems of global society from more specific course themes, and also study foundational knowledge such as approach methods and theories and doctrines. Based on these common and foundational subjects, the study of “specialist subjects” will provide students with profound mastery in practical terms and in their respective fields of specialization.

Doctoral program:

Advanced research skills will be trained in order for students to become independent researchers who play an active role in academia and society. To this end, in addition to “doctoral seminars,” which are specialist subjects taught by individual academic staff, we offer “doctoral general seminars” which provide for the supervisory participation of several academic staff and in which students will master multilateral approaches to problems. Likewise through the “ individual doctoral research supervision” provided by the main supervisors, we ensure careful support in writing the doctoral thesis.

Research Supervision

Students select at least three of the academic staff who guide them in their research to form a supervising team. A supervising team with specializations in various fields is formed, and research supervision is conducted from a broad-ranging perspective which supports an integrated and interdisciplinary education.

Degree

The basis for referring to the degree titles the specialist fields of this Graduate School are master (academic) or doctor (academic). However, students who studied “Comprehensive Earth Sciences” or “Comprehensive Sciences of the Biological Environment” as their main course, and students who have acquired sufficient specialist education in a scientific field while on the “Comprehensive East Asian & Japanese Studies” course will, after a specified review, be conferred the title of master (science) or doctor (science).