Tokyo Tech Visionary Project is a compulsory subject for the first-year students at Tokyo Tech. It encourages self-discovery and aims to motivate students to set individual goals so that they can envision their own path throughout the four years of engineering studies at the undergraduate level. The course alternates between lectures and group work. Throughout the course, students will listen to some talks about the non-engineering field that have not been encountered yet. It takes importance on the development of personality, sociability and creativity. It also allows students to identify, scrutinize, and convey problems, enhancing the interactive set of skills needed for efficient communication and presentation.
The lecture commenced last April 7, 2016 with a talk by Prof. Jun Fudano and attended by all GSEP students and lecturers.
1. Lecture (1st session)
Prof. Fudano’s started his talk by introducing the project course from its purpose, development, and implementation. The course, headed by the Institute for Liberal Arts, is conducted separately in both Japanese and English. Each topic is covered in two distinct sessions. The first session is through a talk by a guest speaker. In the second session, students share their summary, response, and insights from the said first session among each other. Marking its first year of implementation, the aim of the course for the students are as follows:
- be able to identify problems from a social perspective;
- find pleasure in exchanging views and ideas with others;
- acquire fundamental skills needed for effective communication and presentation;
- learn how to read a book through a book review writing workshop.
After the introduction, Prof. Fudano talked about ethics in a much broader, grander sense after distinguishing the types of ethics, preventive and aspirational ethics. He claims that science and engineering ethics has been taught in the mode of “preventive ethics” emphasizing on the responsibilities and duties of scientists and engineers to avoid harming the safety and health of the public and to avoid committing misconducts and questionable research practices. During the lecture, he centered more on the latter type which holds paramount the well-being of both the scientist or engineer and its society. He gives importance to this perspective of ethics which dwells more on the positive side of engineering or scientific practice.
Ethics, therefore, is closely linked to well-being or the definition of happiness. Prof. Fudano talked about historical background and development of the world and society by introducing concepts, uncommon for scientists yet highly relevant. Concepts include the Cosmic Calendar, the Easterlin’s Paradox, the well-being model, and so on. For the 1st year GSEP students, he commends them for taking the enjoyable and exciting path of science and technology in Tokyo Tech. It will be tough adjusting at first but rest assured, Tokyo Tech will wholeheartedly support the students in achieving their goals.
Finally, a take home advice for the students as well as the readers of this article is that as an ethical person, we can make our lives worth living and much happier by giving an added purpose or value to whatever we do; and that is to aim to improve the well-being of society.
2. Group Work (2nd session)
After Prof. Fudano’s talk, the students were given a homework by writing their own summary and insights to the talk. During the Group Work facilitated by GSEP lecturers, the 14 students were grouped into 3 to share what they have leared from Prof. Fudano’s lecture. As expected from the GSEP students, they were actively exchanging their ideas as a group. To assist in the discussion, each group was provided with a round car-board, called “entakun” (click the image to enlarge: ), for the students to write on freely what they have learned from listening or discussing with other group members. After exchanging their reflection notes within the group, the students were then given the opportunity to express what they have found as a group to the rest of the students. Indeed it was an enjoyable, unique course for the students and even the facilitators. Eventually, everyone felt that more time should be allotted for discussion in the future.
Click the spinning entakuns to enlarge 
Below are few photos taken from the group discussion.
Speaker background:
Prof. Jun Fudano is currently a professor in the University Management Center of Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has a Ph.D. in History of Science, M.A. in Education, and M.A. in History of Science. His research areas cover science education, educational technology, social and safety system science. Prof. Fudano’s research interests are engineering ethics education, the role of liberal arts education in engineering program, science and engineering ethics, history of science, research ethics. More information about Prof. Fudano can be found here.
Written by Alvin C.G. Varquez