The theme of my research during my undergraduate years was “a timetable creation model for the Department of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Iwate University”. I started by identifying the current status and problems of the timetable for the department. Since the distance between Iwate University’s Science and Engineering department and other departments are somewhat far apart, we proposed a model to create a timetable that would minimize the travel distance between these campuses. First, we created a timetable creation model that did not consider the travel distance between campuses, and then introduced the travel distance between campuses into the model to create and propose a timetable creation model that takes the travel distance into account.

In graduate school, I wanted to “challenge something new”, so I am currently studying the diffusion of information on Twitter based on the hypothesis that the diffusion of information diffuses differently depending on the content of tweets, and analyze the network structure using user information. Although the research is still in progress, it has become clear that there are specific patterns of information propagation depending on the content of tweets. We used TwitterAPI to collect tweets and acquire user information. It is very fun to program it and see what kind of tweets spread. Since there is not much prior research, I often get stuck, but on the other hand, if I can set up a problem well, my research proceeds smoothly, so I find it rewarding to do.

In my case, I had already decided to go on to graduate school when I entered undergraduate school. This is partly because my father, who is also an alumnus of Iwate University’s graduate school (Engineering), believed that “going on to graduate school is a prerequisite if you want to pursue a career in science”, but when I actually experienced life in graduate school, I found that the flexible hours allowed me to participate in any internships I wanted as long as my schedule allowed. I was able to perform tasks that I could not experience as an undergraduate student. It also nurtures logical thinking, and I highly recommend that those who want to be active in the field of science go on to graduate school. I can proudly say that my choice to go on to graduate school was the right one.