Marie MIYAZAWA

The Reason Why You Chose GSM

During the earlier stages of choosing an MBA program I considered my options in the U.S. as well. However, considering the cost of tuition and living expenses, it did not seem a good option due to my savings. More importantly, I expected to have professor’s commitment and mentorship during and after my study. I thought it is better to attend a smaller program within my proximity. These two reasons made me to apply the GSM in Kyoto University. Their strength is that both types of academic research and practical research are held being designed for students to enjoy both aspects of business management study. They also have various types of students such as unexperienced, experienced, and foreign students, who might inspire me to grasp things in multidirectional aspects. It is also one of the key factors that they provide special admission program for business persons.

What You Learned at GSM

GSM held quite unique classes with wide range of areas of experts of business and research areas. It is an added value to learn from their diversified backgrounds and experiences. If you need gathering knowledge or understanding procedure only, on-line classes and self-study will provide the sufficient results. However, the opportunity to have a learning experience with active discussions along with fellow students and leading professors cannot be replaced with any other on-line options. The followings are some of interesting classes;
1)「Venture Creation and Financing」(Ant Bozkaya : Professor of Entrepreneurship, UC Berkeley https://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/syllabuses2019/275/8/6760000
2)「Business Modeling and Design」（Dimitris Karagannis: Professor in University of Vienna）
3)「Value Management：Strategy, Risk, Finance」（Takashi Mitachi：ex Japan Representative of Boston Consulting Group）
4)「Contract　Management」(Toshihiko Oki：FIDIC President's List of Approved Adjudicators)
5)「Project Finance」(Kuniaki Anma: ex director of JBIC and others)
6)「Organizational Behavior」（Tomoki Sekiguchi：GSM Professor）
7)「Strategic Practice for Open Market」（Chihiro Suematsu：GSM Professor）
8)「Transportation & Logistic Management」（Tadashi Yamada：GSM Professor and others）
9)「Finance」（Yasuyuki Kato：GSM Professor）
Other graduate schools:
10)「Law of Civil Procedure IIA」（Masatoshi Kasai：Professor in graduate school of Law）
11)「Research Method of Management of Studies」（Akita Takeishi：Professor in graduate school of Economics）

The Reason Why You Chose Your Career Plan

Through the working experience in global investment banks such as Deutsche Bank, Long Term Credit Bank, Mitsubishi-UFJ Trust Banking & Corporations, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, I eventually discovered that someone joined ADB and World Bank and found that they require graduate school diploma to join. This is also one of the factors to apply MBA as the tool to expand my career opportunities. In addition, I had a chance to take International Program on Resilient Society Development under Changing Climate(http://www.drc.t.kyoto-u.ac.jp/rsdc/), in which all the students from ASEAN countries study in Kyoto University and some universities in Thailand for three months. This is also one of the factors to motivate me to choose the career as global human capital to contribute international society. The reason why I choose WHO out of various organizations under United Nations is that my theme was “Individual and Organization’s Well-Being.”“The objective of the World Health Organization shall be the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”(Article 1 in constitution of WHO). “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (in preamble) Working in the organization, I felt the difficulties of contribution to the society through research on public policy. The one of the difficulties lays on the value of “well-being” for individuals, which depends on the person’s cultural background, richness, and political environment of his/her country. If we were asked to realize “peace” using one of the three items on the table; a gun, a gold bar, and an egg, some may use a gun to threaten his/her harmful people, or some may use gold bar to invest and earn more, or some may eat an egg. Thus, even the simple word of “peace” itself includes tremendous meanings depending on individuals. The politics is like to stir the soup of comingle values of peace with paddle. The research on public policy cannot be shift to any particular politics and keep neutral position. Then we need monitor budgeting and financing on projects in financial management perspective.

What Impressed You About GSM

The advantage of GSM is that you can have the direct lectures and mentoring from your supervisor through work shop. The limited number of around 100 students allow this system to give the detailed commitment of the supervisor to each student. My supervisor Professor Kawano is leading a big laboratory in engineering in Kyoto University, and might be busy, however, he tried to take his time as long as possible for me to complete my final presentation of workshop at the last minute with open-mind. I really appreciate his advice and mentoring which were quite new and impressive for me who spent a long time in business field working with the same type of person and thoughts, even though his comments were sometimes severe and hard for me to overcome. The comments from Professor Kobayashi(Currently：Graduate School of Management Distinguished Professor), who has the world bank’s experience, in my final Work Shop presentation was very impressive and helpful for me to deepen my understanding of theme.

Extracurricular Activities You Have Done

In purpose of preparation for RSDC program, I also attended the intensive program held by Consortium Universities in Kyoto “Let’s make presentation for Kyoto in English” on every Saturday. Since I am not from Kyoto, it was a good chance to learn history and culture in Kyoto with students from other universities located in Kyoto for me to introduce Kyoto to foreign students. I also took the opportunities to take the role of TA and Tutor and learned how teacher designs and leads the class, and to what kind of difficulties the foreign students face. Moreover, there are some entrepreneurship programs in Kyoto University to support students to start business by themselves. They provide a lot of knowledge and resources through the program which give a competition of video presentation. I joined this program and make video presentation of “world-wide band promotions.”. I also have opportunities to share colleagues’ dream and thoughts in the get-together parties. The net-working with colleagues is one of my treasure after graduation.

Message for Prospective Students

　What I want to say to any candidate who think of applying to MBA, GSM Kyoto University can be one of your better options if you would like to invest yourself— money and time— as a preparation of tools in your 100-year life. I may say we can attend GSM every 10 years and have a chance to re-visit life cycle to enrich the whole life. I changed my approach to things after GSM days. When I faced one issue, I used to think of “this is right or wrong”, however, now I try to focus on “the causal relationship of fact A and fact B” and then do not mention my thought on the result and see how the others reflect on the result. In addition, when I have questions, I choose the only one that they can answer easily and design questions. When I communicate with colleague in HQ, I am trying to this approach and successfully have a smooth communication. This owes to my professor Kawano. I would like to continue to contribute GSM which gave me a lot of treasure as alumni.

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Alumni