Umebayashi Koh from Tokyo Institute of Technology

I participated in the CAMPUS Asia KAIST summer program for a month in August. This program gives students the opportunity to spend a month in a laboratory at KAIST and learn about a research theme of their own choosing. This is not only my first time to study abroad, but also my first research activity in a research laboratory. One of my motivations for studying abroad was that I would like to gain practical experience while learning about a specialized field through classroom lectures at Tokyo Tech. I aimed to learn about the latest research up close by actually working with my hands through experiments. Another objective was to challenge myself to communicate in academic English through research study abroad, as I did not have confidence of my English communication skills. I would like to go a long-term study abroad program in the future, I thought that a short-term study abroad program of one month would be best opportunity.

For one month, I was in the department of Biological Sciences and was a member of the Systems and Synthetic Biology lab. On the first day of my research activities, I discussed my research topic and schedule for the four weeks with my lab mentor. The theme of this research activity was “Learning the process of how to sequence microbial strains. The microorganism I studied was Streptomyces, a type of actinobacteria, and my goal was to learn the process of sequencing Streptomyces, which produces a wide variety of secondary metabolites. In fact, the one-month research period was too short to accomplish all of our goals, but we were able to gain practical learning through our four weeks in the lab. One of the most learned things was gDNA extraction; from the third week, I was able to perform gDNA extraction experiments by myself and became familiar with the instruments and experiments handled in the lab. What I liked most about this program was the challenge of academic communication. KAIST students communicated with me in English without hesitation. It was my first time to study abroad, and I was anxious, but I could gain confidence in communicating through speaking with the students.

I would like to use the practical learning and academic communication skills I gained from this program for my activities in the laboratory, which will begin in October. In addition, the short-term study abroad experience has given me confidence for longer-term study abroad. I would like to connect the valuable experience I gained from this program to my future goal of studying abroad for a longer period of time.