Voice From Alumni

My name is Yogesh Kumar Maurya born in the northern part of India. I did my schooling and obtained my Masters' degree in India. I was always inspired by my parents, friends and enhanced by teachers to achieve goal in my career life. After obtaining my Masters' degree from India, I plan to go abroad for my doctoral degree and for this reason I choose Japan as it is one of the most advanced country in terms of research and technologies. Currently, I am a PhD student in Kyushu University joined in October 2015. I receive the government scholarship “ MEXT ” as the financial support for the tenure of my study and research in Japan. My long term goal is to employ the chemistry ideas by collaborating with the biological advancements for the betterment of human development and society related with the photodynamic theory and energy saving purposes
My hobbies include listening music, travelling, socialization with other people and I spend my free time surfing the internet.

Fukuoka is one of the biggest and interesting city on Kyushu island in Japan. The most favorite thing about Fukuoka is the least expensiveness of the city in comparison to other famous parts of the country like Tokyo. I think Fukuoka is a good place to live in as apartments and food are inexpensive which makes living cost reliable. It is a clean and comfortable city to live in and it is not so busy place like Tokyo. The night life of Fukuoka is very good. The city also includes many shrines which are easily accessible via trains and buses. In my personal experience, the people of Fukuoka city are very friendly and kind. There are many shopping malls, entertainment places which is worth to spend some time together with friends. I have not travel much in Japan, so its little difficult to compare with the other cities of Japan. The city has lot of unique food in Fukuoka. There are many hot springs (onsen) which I would like to visit in future.

Japan is a place to amaze you with the surprises which one had never seen before, like the vending machines, technologies in the shopping malls etc. The people’s lifestyle and Japanese technologies influenced me for better independent lifestyle. Before coming to Japan, I thought communicating or talking would be very difficult in country like Japan where English speaking people are very rare. But after living for several months, I realized it is not so difficult to adapt the Japanese culture to lead an independent life in Japan. In my opinion, the uniqueness of Japan lies in belief of people who all maintain the moral and propriety towards their culture. People are punctual and so kind to others which makes the life easier.

After obtaining my Masters' degree, I was keenly interested to do my graduate studies abroad. My research field area and specific topic made me to choose Kyushu University as a part of doctoral degree program. I would say it was advantage for me to join Kyushu University, as I had gathered much of the information about research, studies and life-style of Kyushu University from my college supervisor’s in India who did their postdoctoral degree from Kyushu University.

I think understanding Japanese language is the toughest of all because I hardly gets time to learn about the Japanese language. Whenever, I get some free time, I try to learn basic Japanese phrases from YouTube channel. The food is still difficult for me to manage with because I prefer only vegan food. So, I had to cook food all myself, for which many of the vegetables are easily available at the shopping malls or convenience stores. I would say that Japanese culture taught me the importance of time and punctuality which is really good thing as a person’s etiquette towards professionalism and commitment.

In my opinion, every country is unique in terms of their culture, religion and people, so it’s better to live and experience on your own way. However, I personally think it’s a pride for me to have my higher degree education in Japan as it teaches me first about the ethics and principles in my professional life. I am very satisfied about studying in Japan as you will find yourself enthusiastic and motivated by the teachers, for doing something innovative in your research field. It’s a really good platform (country) for the students who are truly committed for doing and learning something out of the box. Last, but not the least, I would like to say that you need to consider all the obstacles and challenges into opportunities to achieve your goal in career life.