Surprisingly, a true liberal arts education is very rare in Japan. One of the few places it is practiced is at the University of Tokyo. Find out why the students like it and dislike it in this new podcast on education.
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Script
PartA.
Hello, everyone. This is a podcast report about Educational Systems, especially in Japan. Today’s topic is Liberal Arts, which is the educational system used at the University of Tokyo. At first, we’ll talk about what is Liberal Arts. Next, we’ll invite some students from Tokyo University to ask about the reality of Liberal Arts.
Now, ……What’s Liberal Arts? It is the general learning that is not specialized, study to begin study, and the purpose of it is to acquire a wide cultural perspective. The student can acquire a general point of view through this, and therefore can get an overview of things. It is often said that the students these days tend to have narrow viewpoints, since research and learning are becoming more and more technical and specialized. But future leaders in various fields shouldn’t have such narrow viewpoints, but should have general viewpoints to exercise leadership.
In the University of Tokyo, first two years is traditionally taken for basic education, and the student learns only general learning without deciding majors. Through it, they plan to train the future leaders, and offer students wider choices otherwise they couldn’t have. In the case of other universities, they have to sacrifice basic education to find the number of the classes of the professional training because the school period is limited to four years. But deciding majors when they enter universities is very difficult for students who just have graduated from high schools. Actually, many students in the University of Tokyo are saying that they chose the university because they could decide their majors after entering the university.
Part.B
?: So far, I hope you have understood the concept of liberal arts. Today, we’ll have two guests from the University of Tokyo. Let me introduce them. This is Masahiro Watanabe, and Minori Inaka.
B: Hello.
C: Nice to be here.
A: I’d like to ask how the system works at this university. So, what do you think of this system?
C: I think it’s good because I can decide my major after entering the university.
B: But actually, it has some bad points, doesn’t it?
C: For example?
B: At this university, we learn the general studies for the first 2 years, then we learn our major for the last 2 years. But at other universities, students have to decide their major when they enter the university.
C: That’s true.
B: The system demands us that we learn in the first 2 years the contents which other university’s students learn for 4 years. This causes us to study so hard in the last 2 years. It’s too demanding for us. Also, we have a lot of free time in the first 2 years. If you have that free time, it’s better to learn a major in the first 2 years.
C: I understand what you mean.
B: So, don’t you think it’s better to start major from their entrance?
C: hmm…but, at our university, after we enter the university we can take the classes for beginners such as Politics, Law or Economics. It makes us possible to give some chance to know about these subjects. It might lead us to be interested in the subject which you weren’t interested in before. Then, you can have more option to choose.
B: hum.
C: I think university students can have more opportunities to know other’s senses of values than high school students. When I was a high school student, it was difficult for me to decide my future. It’s a pity to remove some options before you know about these options. So I think it’s too hard for the high school students to decide their major before they go to universities.
B: It sometimes happens that you regret your decision after you made it.
C: After all, we could say the system in which we can decide our major after entering the university is great, don’t you think?
PART.C
Thank you, Mr.Watanabe and Ms. Inaka.
OK……… Such a fact has become clear that though there’s a fault that we have to cram in the last 2 years, Liberal Arts which the University of Tokyo have introduced seems a good system in that we’ll able to choose many courses in the future and to have broad knowledge besides our major fields.
However, it depends on you student eventually whether you could make the most of this system.