Tokyo Tech Visionary Project Course always invites exceptional speakers to give lectures to the students. This lecture session is no exception; it was a rare and special treat to have our speaker come and impart his knowledge and experience to our GSEP students.
On May 11, 2017, we had the honor to have Dr. Ben Perkasa Drajat, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Tokyo as a speaker in our class. Dr. Ben has a very distinguished career as a diplomat that is already spanning for more than two decades since he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1990. He holds a doctorate from the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation in Hiroshima University, Japan.
Dr. Ben talked about diplomacy and international relations. He discussed about the different academic approaches to international relations and gave some of his insights on each one. He also talked about the history of relations between nations, where he mentioned about the establishment of diplomatic relations, requirements to become a state, as well as the League of Nations that was a precedent of the United Nations today. Then he talked about the recent developments in international relations together with its implications in the world today and lastly, he shared to the class the Indonesian foreign policy elaborating on the Indonesian values, its foreign policy priorities, and the way Indonesia conducts foreign policy. During his presentation, he shared some of his experiences as a diplomat including the challenges that goes with the job. At the end of his talk, he shared it was really his dream to be a diplomat even when he was very young and then finished the session with some advices and inspirational words to the GSEP students, encouraging them to do their best and enjoy their student life in a foreign country.
In the next class meeting, the students were given the chance to synthesize their learning from the talk of Dr. Ben. During the discussion, the students posed questions such as why is there a need for countries, what is peace, when can we say that there is peace, and why is balance of power important? The questions are deep and more critical than what we expect from freshmen students. The teachers took a back seat and let the students discuss and share their answers to the questions raised by their other classmates. The discussions were truly interesting and at the end, time ran out and most of the students wanted to discuss more and said that they hope they had more time to do it.
Diplomacy and international relations are not usual topics that are discussed with engineering students. Once again, through the Tokyo Tech Visionary program, the students were able to broaden their horizons after listening to relevant talks and discussing it with the class afterward. The group discussions provided the venue for their young minds to be stimulated as they attempt to answer daunting questions training them to become critical thinkers in the course of their journey to become well-rounded individuals and engineers in the future.
Written by: Eden G. Mariquit