President’s address for Entrance Ceremony 2018

We are proud and excited to welcome you to International College of Technology. We are proud because we have a long, successful history. We are excited because we are starting a completely new kind of school, and you are the first students to join our new school community.
For many years we have trained young people to be global engineers. Global engineers not only understand science and technology, but also can work in today’s globally interconnected society.
And now we are starting a completely new course. It is the Department of Science and Technology—国際理工学科 in Japanese. Because it is completely new, we are also changing the name of our school to International College of Technology—国際高等専門学校.

1) We will focus on the heart of science and technological innovation. Science is a set of processes for finding new information and knowledge. Using science, we can know and understand. Innovation uses information and knowledge from science to change our world. You will learn the important and powerful central ideas of science and innovation.
2) You will study math, science, technology, and engineering using English. This will make it possible for you to join the international community of innovators, to learn and share with leaders of innovation around the world.
3) You will live and study together with people of different backgrounds, from different countries and cultures. You will meet and work with people who have different interests, different ideas, and different world views. From this, you will learn to work effectively in today’s diverse society. This will also help you to understand who you are, how you are different from others, and what is important to you.
4) You will learn actively. That means, you will learn from projects, from designing and making, and from discussion and debate. You will learn by interacting with your classmates, your teachers and advisors, and people in our community. Sometimes you will learn by explaining and teaching.
5) You and we—teachers and staff—will study together in a local community, in the middle of nature. We will all become new members of the local community of Hakusanroku. We will learn its culture, its history, and from the nature around it. We will work together to try to make life better in our local community.

So, those are five key points about your new school. Now I’ll give you some advice:
1) Take control of your learning. You learn not only from classwork and homework; you learn from being curious, asking questions, looking for answers, setting your own goals, and looking for interesting experiences. Always look for connections between your different courses, projects, activities, and interests.
2) Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid of not trying difficult things. When something doesn’t work as expected, it’s a chance to learn. Be ready to learn from mistakes and problems.
3) Study and enjoy history, literature, art, music, drama, film, and other arts. They make our lives rich, and help us understand our place in the world. They take us out of ourselves, show us how others live, think, and feel. They are our connections with other humans.
4) Learn to think carefully about good and bad. Thinking about good and bad is called “ethics,” 倫理. This is important for everyone who lives in human society. But it is most important for innovators, who change the world. It is important for the change to be a good change, that makes our lives better, not worse. Innovators must be especially careful, because we don’t know the exact result of innovative changes.
5) Look for your life project—your mission. Your mission is the big goal that you hope to reach in your lifetime. Everyone has a personal mission. You are future leaders. Your personal mission can be ambitious, challenging, and lead to good for man people. Be a leader!