After completing my bachelor’s degree in October 2018, I didn’t immediately return to my hometown. I still had responsibilities as the Coordinator of the Advanced Physics Laboratory Assistants until December 2018. During that period, I also prepared for the JLPT N3 exam, which I took for the third time in December 2018. Fortunately, the effort paid off—I finally passed. I’ll share more about my Japanese-learning journey in another post / page.

Toward the end of 2018 (I can’t remember the exact month), I had the opportunity to attend a seminar at ITB about graduate study opportunities at Hiroshima University. I was interested because many ITB Physics lecturers are alumni of that university. After attending the seminar, I started looking for professors whose research topics matched my interests.

Once I found a suitable professor, I contacted him to ask whether he would be willing to accept an international student. Thankfully, he responded quickly and said he was open to it. However, he also informed me that there was no available financial support, meaning I would have to find my own funding for tuition and living expenses. I applied for the MEXT scholarship (the Japanese government scholarship), but unfortunately, I didn’t pass—likely because my research plan wasn’t strong enough during the document screening stage.

But luck was still on my side. One of my seniors, who graduated at the same time as I did but from the master’s program, introduced me to the NIMS-GRA (NIMS Graduate Research Assistantship) program. I ended up applying for the program together with that senior, and I’ll share the details in the next page.

A Key Lesson: Never Give Up

This experience taught me that even if one opportunity doesn’t work out, there is always another path you can take. Stay persistent, and keep pushing forward.