Advises for prospective students

General tips

My colleagues and I frequently receive emails from international students expressing interest in studying in Japan. Regrettably, assessing these applications is very difficult. I provide here some tips and good practices to improve your chance of receiving a favorable answer.

First, it is very important to look at the type of research conducted in the prospective laboratory. If your prior studies and/or expertise are widely different or only loosely connected to the lab's research topics, address this directly in your initial communication. Outline your strategy for bridging this gap and acquiring fundamental skills needed for your research project. Be specific, citing relevant textbooks or learning resources (i.e., online course).

Second, when composing your initial email, aim for brevity and clarity. Many emails I receive tend to be lengthy and very generic. For instance, elucidate how the laboratory's research aligns with your academic and career goals. Alternatively, concretely explain why you were impressed by some aspects of the laboratory's research. Such statements will be more compelling and demonstrate that you thoroughly reviewed and understood the research work conducted in the prospective  laboratory.

Formatting specific documents

CV: As far as I know, there is no golden/international standard regarding a CV length and format. As a rule of thumbs try to keep the CV within 2 pages so it can easily be screened by potential supervisors. Do not worry if the document is "only" one page, I would rather ready a nicely condensed one page CV than a four pages badly formatted CV. Pay extra attention to the design, fonts and English in the CV and try to craft a visually appealing document. Here are a few extra points for some specific section:

1. Education: I recommend to keep this section short as applicants typically also provide grades (see below). Clearly indicate the years during which you were involved in a given establishment, and provide the field(s) you studied. 

2. Experience: This section is rather important but unfortunately often poorly written. Indicate clearly and concretely what were/are your responsibilities and mentioned one or two notable achievements.

3. Skills: I would avoid long list of common programs (i.e., MS Word, MS Excel, MS Office...). Alternatively, simply summarize these common software under a common name (i.e., Office suite) and try to provide one or two more technical skills (for example programming, GIS...).

Publications: As most applicants are very early in their carrier, I do not expect them to have published yet in a (international) scientific journal, hence do not worry if you do not provide a publication document. If you have a publication track, be sure to provide a document chronologically listing your achievements and eventually provide a short summary of your most important work. In addition, if you had the opportunity to present your work at a conference or during a seminar also add these achievements to the publication document. To further appeal, you could indicate how many people attended a given event or indicate that you received an award.

1. For scientific articles, clearly separate peer-review and non peer-review articles,

2. Provide the impact factor of the journal, whenever available.

Education: The grading systems used around the world varies greatly. As a result, it is extremely difficult to assess the actual abilities of a given candidate even when all grades are provided. As a result, I recommend to briefly indicate in you first email the key takeaway from the education you received, indicating in which discipline(s) you excel.