I completed the public management program in September 2016. I made use several times of the arrangement for temporary absence, finally graduating five years after commencing study in 2011. Due to time spent caring for family and my own illness and accidents,
I was unable to secure as much time for study as I had anticipated before enrolling, and I came to appreciate that, however much my own personal circumstances might change, it is important to keep moving forward by always doing as best you can in the situation you find yourself in.
What caused me most difficulty while at GraSPP was study planning and other scheduling. I had all sorts of problems, with only a few days of the week when I was able to get to the campus, meaning I was unable to take the subjects I wanted, or found myself unable to attend part way through the course, or was unable to be present on the day of the exam. As I often couldn’t get enough time for study at home, the train to and from the campus also became an important study location for me.
Despite these limits on my time, I took as much advantage as I could of the unique study opportunities available to me at GraSPP. I was able to study in a very stimulating environment, including experience of a cross-disciplinary approach spanning the humanities and sciences through joint projects with students from engineering, medicine, and other fields in the classwork for the GSDM program, and the great discussions I had with overseas students with whom I became friends about the political and other circumstances in their countries in the classwork for the MPP/IP. Through interactions with a wide variety of people over those five years, and with support from many others, I was able to grow in terms of both my studies and in other aspects of my life.
Graduation from GraSPP represents a new start. My current work mostly involves educational consulting associated with the US Department of Defense, with which I have been involved since my time as a student, and providing policy advice to local government. My challenge for myself now is to find out how I can give back to society by putting into practice my past experience and what I learned at GraSPP, and I intend to continue taking on this challenge without fear of failure.
(from Newsletter No. 46)