{"id":1489,"date":"2022-03-08T05:33:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T05:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2022-03-08T05:33:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T05:33:01","slug":"victor-shishkin-what-i-learned-from-my-doctoral-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/2022\/03\/08\/victor-shishkin-what-i-learned-from-my-doctoral-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor SHISHKIN \u201cWhat I learned from my Doctoral Course\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I came to Japan having hundreds of productive ideas and a big passion \u201chow to realize those ideas\u201d. And I had a question \u201cwhich ideas are worth focusing?\u201d After entering to doctoral course, I could choose any directions and anything which I had interest as far as it would have novelty and challenging. Such freedom gave me a lot of possible directions. At the same time. it gave me uncertainty also. I thought \u201cHow to spend those three years hereafter?\u201d<\/p>\n

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It will be the easiest way to find a theme of my doctoral course that I combine my research and \u201cThe New Laboratory\u201d. A theme of doctoral course should be possible as far as it would be challenging and have novelty. So, I proceeded to this direction for the first one and half years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, I was confronted with my self-questions which many doctoral course students have experienced. \u201cAre there anybody who think it necessary?\u201d \u201cFor whom am I proceeding?\u201d<\/p>\n

Answers from my pondering did not satisfy myself. I know there are few companies which understand my technology and the number of people who like to use such products which use my technology is few. As I have been working for a business world for years, I was accustomed to the works which respond to customers\u2019 needs. In other words, it became difficult for me to work for technical development which may have no customers\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I realized my doubt. It was very important period which is one year and half before the thesis defense of the first semester and start of doctoral thesis. I know I would suffer a hardship or lose my motivation if I spend my remaining time being unable to trust how my research would be useful. I could not cheat myself anymore. I thought \u201cHow can I write doctoral thesis where I do not have confidence? I will have questions which I cannot answer from examiners or others.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think it necessary to trust myself from bottom of my heart what I am doing now in order to continue my long doctoral course and to have a power which can overcome my difficult time and setback. I must find honest answer to myself to questions: \u201cFor whom and for what am I doing? Is it useful?\u201d  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During the period which I was looking for the answer, I recognized a new thesis. I recalled a customer\u2019s dissatisfaction which I heard when I have been working for Russian company. When I talked with potential customers of my technology at an industrial exhibition in Tokyo, I could confirm their questions. I discussed with CEO of a company of my research field to make clear about difficult point and after this discussion, I could grasp a trend of technical development of my research field using \u2018big data analysis tool\u2019. When I attended international meeting, I could understand future of this technology after talking with a top of academic conference and technical scouts. I studied about process of political decision for the purpose how the Japanese Government support research field and analyzed the Governmental data at GRIPS (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies).         <\/p>\n

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I concluded that the most important factor for customers is the price of goods. What customers are unsatisfied is not performance of goods but the price. There are a lot of potential customers who know about our sensing technology but cannot afford to buy although they like it. So, I put my effort into affordable price and came up with an idea that the most precious parts of sensor system would be made on the photonic chips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now I understand that I have been working for customers who could not afford optical fiber sensing technology and I am convinced customers would buy and use the products if we can decrease the prices.   <\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

I repeated unsuccessful efforts for the first year when I started toward new direction. Nothing went well. Design of chips, production process and setting up of testing etc. I could not find what was wrong. However, I did not feel depressed. I thought it would go well next time. I trusted myself thinking that my research would be useful and it gave me a power of inspiration, motivation and endurance for failures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I learned from my doctoral course is an importance of trusting myself from bottom of my heart when I proceed long term projects. It is necessary to have not only logical understanding but emotional connection also. If I can do so, it will be useful for getting better, being encouraged and encourage others in my daily life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Principle mentioned above can be applied to a lot of occasions in daily life.<\/p>\n

1) When we learn new languages, it is necessary to trust the languages and necessary to trust ourselves. In my case, the reason why I can speak English is I have stayed in America for six months where nobody could understand Russian language.<\/p>\n

2) As I was afraid of getting fat, I keep on doing exercises every day.<\/p>\n

3) Everybody knows early riser is efficient. But it is not enough to know what is early riser.  It is necessary to believe their feelings truly. In my case, I started my early rise because I liked to see sunrise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hereafter I will keep finding honest answers against my question \u201cWhy?\u201d for what I am doing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SGRA Kawaraban 698 in Japanese (Original)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Victor SHISHKIN \/2020 Raccoon, Project Researcher at The University of Tokyo<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Translated by Kazuo Kawamura<\/p>\n

English checked by Sabina Koirala<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I came to Japan having hundreds of productive ideas and a big passion \u201chow to realize those ideas\u201d. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kawaraban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aisf.or.jp\/sgra\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}