For the people who have applied for any monbusho scholarship, can you help me clear up some things?

indojindesu said:

Hi! I got selected this year for the embassy recommended research student Scholarship(science) , but I have no idea about the social science part.
Maybe you can ask travis at MEXT Scholarship (Embassy) | TranSenz: Expat Living in Japan
He used to (or maybe still does) work at a Japanese university and as far as I know he seems to be the best source for such a query.
Good luck

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Houjou said:

As far as I know, in 2016, the Embassy of Spain gave more fellowships to humanities/social studies than science/math/engineering ones. Not sure if this little fact's useful to you.

At the same time, expected levels of Japanese, knowledge of Japanese culture and society are higher for those applying for humanities than those applying for science-related studies.

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maryorellana said:

Sorry if the english is kind of awkward, is not my first language!
So, as the title says, I want to ask something to the people who have applied to these scholarships. My question is about social sciences and humanities. I decided to google "Social sciences and humanities Japan" Because i'm interested in that, and I read that the government wants to close them? The news is old though, but still worries me since the career I wanna choose to apply is from that field . I wanna know if you guys know if actually the ones that didnt choose humanities have more chances than those who have applied to that field? seems kind of logical to me, because if some universities are closing social sciences it might be hard to find universities for the people who have applied.

So, the thing is that if you guys know people who have gotten the scholarship even if they chose social sciences and humanities?

I'm really worried I dont stand a chance

Thank you!

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TranSenz said:

Chiming in a little late here. Thanks to @maryorellana and @indojindesu for bringing this thread to my attention!
I've done a bit of research on that particular government directive and the fallout. (Please pardon me if the answer gets long and rambling).

The short version is that you have nothing to worry about. I have seen no effect on MEXT scholarship awards in social sciences and humanities. The whole issue turned into a major embarrassment for the Abe government, and they've publicly tried to clarify several times.

The source of all the news articles you saw was a government directive to national universities that directed them to consider closing or reforming certain programs within the humanities and social sciences in their next mid-term plan.

The directive specifically targeted: Law Programs, Teacher's Training Programs that did not include earning a teaching certificate, and Economics Programs.

You've probably seen the wording that the article specifically targeted these fields because it said "universities should focus on fields that were more useful to society." Japan has an overabundance of lawyers, a teacher's training program that doesn't lead to professional certification is essentially useless, and economics . . . well, my theory is that Abe was sick of first-year undergraduate students who were smart enough to realize his Abenomics plan was doomed to fail.
These three fields were branded as not useful enough in their current form to worth national universities pursuing the. With the exception of Economics, I think there's a valid point in there. They do need reform.

Unfortunately, this got interpreted, especially in English, as "Universities should shift away from all social sciences and humanities because they aren't useful to society."

Fortunately, this misinterpretation lead to a huge blowback from Japanese universities and business. Business organizations said that they need more social science and humanities graduates - that those programs do meet the needs of society (social science graduates from my university have 100% employment rates over the last 4 years). Some university presidents also went to bat saying that humanities and social sciences had more value for society.
In general, the social sciences and humanities got a lot more staunch, public defenders than they had had before.

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trish^_^ said:

I got accepted this year, and i will be studying under the graduate school of social sciences. The university i chose is also known for its social sciences programs. There were also others who got accepted that had social sciences majors.

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