Monbukagakusho Scholarship for Postgraduate!!

As for the Japanese courses offered together with the MEXT scholarship, do you have to take them while you study in the lab (or while you attend the courses at the university), or is it a period where you only study Japanese (let alone the work done to pass the entrance exam for graduate school) ?

hmm i thought i answered your post already...

all that is up to you and you're prof. Most people take the first 6month to study japanese and prepare for the entrance exams with out doing any research.

thanks a lot for your answer. I'll try to convince my prof that it's a good idea to work towards the entrance exam while taking the Japanese courses. I passed the 2kyu level 2 years ago, but I feel I lost a lot.

I have another question for you menrui and for the others out there who are studying in Japan, how often can you go back to your country ? of course it depends on the distance and probably on the professor too, but I wonder how different the life in a Japanese lab is from a Japanese company : how much holidays do you have ?
Vacation is not the most important when you do what you like to do, but I am leaving in my country my girlfriend, so that's an important point to me ! I haven't found any answer to this question in the forum.

JM

hey JM

basically there're no holidays in japanese labs
even during national holidays, you will still find someone working
so it all depends on your supervisor.
if he's 窶妊窶堋ｵ窶堋｢ﾂ人 then lucky you, you can take breaks and holidays from him
if he's a workaholic, then may God bless you.
My professor works throughout the night most of the time. But he's quite nice so he works hard but doesn't demand the students to be as devoted as him. So i have my freedom of time in the lab, sometimes.
my tutor works up till 11pm everyday, including weekends.
That's how crazy they can be.
Going back to your country depends on your supervisor and money of course. The govt/MEXT/immigration doesn't impose any restrictions on you. As an undergraduate, you will have semester breaks, as long as 2 months during summer. But as a research student/postgraduate student, there's no such thing. You take breaks upon requests.

You're going to love my answer...
Anyways, again like ooiling said, it depends. My lab is pretty much like a "Japanese company", what ever that means.

here is my situation:
money-
I have to fly to the other side of the world, so its kind of expensive. I dont see myself going back too often. I dont have a gf, so its ok.
Lab hours-
10 to 10 and 10 to 7 on saturday. yes i know it sucks.
lab holidays-
we only get national holidays, not even school holidays. otherwise, we have to request holidays. I got a week for summer. I just ask for 2 weeks for christmas to go back to the US, although my prof didnt really like the idea .

This isnt really common so dont freak out. my lab is just at the worst end of the spectrum.

I have ranted.

Hi everyone,

I was curious if anyone took test for undergraduate studies. I am planing to do that so for now I am readying myself for it, but...I saw 2009,2008,... years tests and i have to say its quite different from things that I study in school and also from school exam that i will take. In this English test that they give i cant really understand 3 task, that tells : "In the following ones underline part is incorrect. Choose the incorrect part". Even so I understand what it wants, I can't understand how I choose what to cross. I asked even my English teacher even she couldn't get that. I hope that someone will be able to help me.
I have to say that tests that they give are difficult, If I would compare them with things that I study at school. It doesn't give much of confidence.

menrui and ooilingfan, thank you
I think I'll be close to your situation menrui as my boss is known to be very demanding, I'll be in the medical school of Tôdai (I got the LOA but I'm still waiting for mext's last decision in fact) and even the people I know from there who have never known him personally are amazed at my bravery (in their mind) to go to this lab ! I must say this does freak me out ^^
Some well informed people have spoken of students working at the lab during the night as if it's totally normal there. I've been doing this a few years ago, and I don't wanna do that ever again !! I don't fancy karôshi, except for the aesthetics of it perhaps..

@Oddel :
The exercise 3 is indeed difficult, if I remember well it is the one where all parts of the sentences seem correct, but they're not. There is always one incorrect part and this is only sensed by very skilled English speakers, whether native or not. Of course natives usually get the best scores. I think it's a fine exercise to detect who has a quite advanced level, as opposed to the other parts that are not so difficult. Anyways no need to worry as the exam this year was MUCH easier than previous years, nothing like that. However, the Japanese exam was difficult in my opinion (or maybe I found it difficult because I was't expecting this), 20 texts to read and each time 1 question (5 answers possible), just 1 hour to answer all 20 questions. Although one can train for that, it does require good reading skills you don't have under say 2kyu level. The good thing is that you can practice this for next year instead of practicing JLPT-like tests of previous years, it's much more interesting and useful. I'm giving this information because you're in the "postgraduate" thread, as for your problem, I also took the undergrad exam 2 years ago to go to language school in Japan (didn't get it, but I was recommended by the embassy), and if this is what you're talking about I can answer your questions. I remember the English exam was pretty much the same as for the postgraduate scholarship, but the Japanese test was different (JLPT-like, level 1/2kyû), hopefully you'll have a test like the one we had this year for postgraduate scholarship as it is easier.

JM

Wow, jeanmarie, you must have done insanely well to even get recommended by the embassy for the undergraduate scholarship. One of the people involved in the process told me that they get so anal about it that out of all the people in the US who applied last year, only 1 was sent. One person.

Of course, since it's 4 years of study at a Japanese university, I guess I can understand how worried they would be that you could accurately learn and communicate. :/

Hi akaitsume1
I wasn't clear : I didn't take the undergrad tests to do an entire curriculum in Japan, but the undergrad tests for Japanese language, where they offer a scholarship to enter the chosen Japanese university just to study Japanese in a special course. In my country, only 1 person got it last year as well...

By the way, I was wondering, how many research scholarships (postgraduate) do they offer in your respective countries ? In France 18 people were selected this year, but I heard it's even less in some countries.

JM

@jm: Ah, gotcha. I'm actually surprised by how many people (even with a recommendation) got turned down for the language studies scholarship. I wonder if they're not putting as much money into it.

I guess they just want more students in the actual universities instead of special programs. Who knows?

In my country 2 candidates are selected for postgraduate studies.

...

jeanmarie, thank you a lot for your answer.

generally arts courses are more difficult to get in compared to sciences.
this is the case in Japan nowadays.
usually postgraduate research student for literature, cultural studies, philosophy, language kind of programs will fully utilize 1-2 years of their research studenship to enter the regular graduate school. Which makes the total to 3-4 years for a Master's degree. You may also need to fail and repeat the entrance exam a few times cause you will be competing with regular Japanese students. Whereas in most science programs, there are special allocations for foreigner students.

akaitsume1 :
If we imagine that a scholarship is one of several diplomatic tools for country A to prove it is willing to share a good relationship with country B, by creating means for good nationals of B (read "ones whom A can trust to be good ambassadors, insiders, prophets to B", or at least leaders in their field who will most probably bind Japan to their success) to be welcomed in A, then they will give more to countries they value most.
I guess in the case of Japan, the undergrad scholarships proved to be highly inefficient in creating good ambassadors of Japan in their country of origin, or maybe all of them failed (demonstrating the inefficiency of all the tests they have to pass to get the scholarship), or maybe it cost too much in regard of the reward..So they still want to use it as a diplomatic tool, saying "we ve got this scholarship", with all the fuss and advertising, and give only 1 per year thus limiting the loss of money while keeping this scholarship alive. It's harsh to say to a country "this year no scholarship of this kind, sorry we used to give it to you but now you don't deserve it any more", instead of "as usual, we've got this one for you, the number of grantees is to be determined later" and it turns out to be 1. But it's just my guess...

neoxtremx:
Only 2 candidates in the US !!?? I thought it was much more ! Did they cut down the number ? Here it was 20 for the past years, 25 I think back in 2005 and maybe more before, and now it's lessening again. I checked on the Korean embassy's website and it's 56 this year, only one less than past years.

ooilingfan :
Are you sure ? In Tôdai the Medical school only takes students in April, which makes it compulsory to be a research student for a year before entering the graduate school, and since the doctoral curriculum in this particular graduate school takes 4 years, that adds up to 5 years instead of 3, and I will have to pass the entrance exam of the medical school competing with Japanese students as well. Where I may agree with you is that it might be more difficult for arts students to get in, probably because they are the most numerous in the beginning (in some countries), but then again they usually select an equal number of students from arts and social studies, and from science (in my country science students are as much attracted to Japan as arts students can be, lots of otakus in science), and I guess they respect this equality until the end although I cannot prove it. As for the fact that literature, philosophy etc students have to pass the entrance exam in Japanese, this is absolutely normal : it is what they will be judged for ! There's no need to test mathematical knowledge in Japanese since Japanese isn't the object of the studies, not even a tool useful for the study of maths, but to study Japanese literature you sure have to be at least as proficient as a Japanese native.
I think we can say that some graduate schools in some universities are easier to get in, but not that science courses in general are.

No, my country is Dominican Republic sorry. I guess i should have been a bit more specific.

hi everyone,

Anyone knows from the previous experience whether we should submit documents or something else to Embassy during December? (Perhaps we were asked to submit additional documents?).

thanks.

dalmatian,
during the waiting period, you shouldnt have to summit any documents.

jeanmarie,
if you had received the language school scholarship, you would have to forfeit the graduate school one(from what i seen, you only get 1 gov scholarship). I think the graduate school one is the best one.

other things:
I think the reason why US only gets 1 undergraduate scholarship slot, is because that scholarship is suppose to give priority to developing countries(according to the guidelines). The graduate scholarship doesnt have that priority, so I think the US gets around 30 each year.

Menrui,
Oh..I was wrong then..I used to assume that graduate had the developing country priority also

Dalmatian,
Have fun in your business trip

@menrui and arap: thanks ^^

menrui :
what I heard is that you can legally get both scholarships if it is successively, but I guess they will have no reason to give 2 different scholarships to the same guy (except if this guy is "recommended" from upper than the embassy's normal cultural services ). Of course I couldn't have had both, but having failed to get the undergrad one I tried to get the postgraduate one a year after.

Hi, I'm new here and have a quick question, probably asked several times already but anyways, if I were to apply for the Postgraduate Scholar when it opens this coming 2010, should I apply for a place in the Universities now or should I wait till I've been asked to. Many thanks in advance.

Apnea, you can already try to befriend a possible supervisor in a university if you want to. It will most likely be considered as an argument in your favor if you already have a place or multiple places to go, if you were to receive the scholarship.
However, you should keep in mind that a lot of professors in Japan prefer to wait until you get the scholarship, before they give you their support.

I would recommend you to try and get some contacts in Japan beforehand, because the period in which you have to select your Universities of preference, is rather short (and is also a holiday period for professors). You can try to find some Japanese professors who are researching in the same field of expertise and send them an e-mail.
This e-mail would include who you are, what you are studying now, that you will apply for the monbusho scholarship, a short summary of your proposed field of study (10 lines) and the question if the professor would be willing to read a full proposal (about 1 page) so that he or she can decide whether he or she would like to become your supervisor in case you got the scholarship.

I would recommend that you wait a little while longer to send out those e-mails. It is not even 2010 yet. Maybe in February or March would be a good time.

These are just mere suggestions of how I would do it, feel free to go your own way or listen to the suggestions of other people.

Scalemx said:

Apnea, you can already try to befriend a possible supervisor in a university if you want to. It will most likely be considered as an argument in your favor if you already have a place or multiple places to go, if you were to receive the scholarship.
However, you should keep in mind that a lot of professors in Japan prefer to wait until you get the scholarship, before they give you their support.
I would recommend you to try and get some contacts in Japan beforehand, because the period in which you have to select your Universities of preference, is rather short (and is also a holiday period for professors). You can try to find some Japanese professors who are researching in the same field of expertise and send them an e-mail.
This e-mail would include who you are, what you are studying now, that you will apply for the monbusho scholarship, a short summary of your proposed field of study (10 lines) and the question if the professor would be willing to read a full proposal (about 1 page) so that he or she can decide whether he or she would like to become your supervisor in case you got the scholarship.
I would recommend that you wait a little while longer to send out those e-mails. It is not even 2010 yet. Maybe in February or March would be a good time.
These are just mere suggestions of how I would do it, feel free to go your own way or listen to the suggestions of other people.

Click to expand...

Awesome suggestion. Thank you!
Yeah, I was thinking it is a bit early to start sending out those letters. Shall bear this in mind and send those letters out sometime in February or March. Many thanks!

Hi all,

I'm new here and I intend to apply for MEXT scholarship in 2010. Just a quick question I have. The research theme that I'm interested in is under the supervision of an assistant professor. So should I email this person although he is actually working in the lab of a prof or should I email the prof of the lab directly? I know I sound silly for not even knowing the right person to contact.
Would appreciate some help here.

Thanks a bunch.

>blurcheryl

I would suggest you to contact the assistant professor (shouldn't it be associate professor? - they changed the names quite some time ago already). I think he will reply to you on what you should be doing. Just a reminder, end of December would be a long holiday in Japan.