The Preparation and Result of my Monbukagakusho Application

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 23:40:32 +0000

I actually only learned of the Monbusho scholarship on May 2nd, that’s the day my sister and I flew to Taiwan to visit our grandpa. We came back to the States on May 8th, and the application deadline for “Research Student” was May 18th. (Note that I linked to the Japan Information Center at the Consulate General of Japan in Chicago rather than New York. This is because I found that the Chicago site provides more info than the New York site. You may also want to look at other Japan Consulate location to get more information.) I did a little digging on the web, read through the application guidelines. The “must be less than 35 years old” requirement hit me hard and made me seriously think about my career and my future. I decided to go for it! I only had a little more than 2 weeks to prepare and 10 days to get my documents together. Real briefly, the documents that are required are:

Application (申請書)
Application (Attachment) (申請書別紙)
Research Program (専攻分野及び研究計画)
Photos (6x4 cm)
Academic transcript of each academic year of the last university attended
Recommendation from the principal or adviser of the last university attended
Recommendation from the present employer
Medical certificate (prescribed form)
Graduation certificate or degree certificate of the last university attended
Abstracts of theses

Some of these are kind of confusing, so I’ll explain them in details in another post. First thing first, I shot a couple of emails to my managers, asking for their recommendations. Then I emailed University of Washington regarding the degree certificate and transcripts. I couldn’t get anyone from UW to write me a recommendation letter, as it has been more than 9 years since I had graduated. I don’t know if they automatically disqualified me based on that, but as a substitute, I asked the Business School adviser to write a letter to confirm to I went there, and I got an extra recommendation from my managers at Yahoo! With those documents out of the way, the next thing I needed to do was to fill out the application forms and write the “Research Program” (the direct translation of its Japanese title is “Major and Research plan”). I’ll describe the applications in detail in another post and I may even post my “Research Program” later. (Hmm… may be even my recommendation letters…) Anyway… come May 18th, I finally got my 2nd recommendation letter back (this is why you need to send these out to the people who’re doing your recommendation ASAP). I personally went over to the Consulate General of Japan in New York - at 299 Park Avenue, between 48th and 49th St. The expectation was, I would get an interview and a Japanese Language exam around June 11 ~ 15th. Then I’ll start contacting the Graduate schools that interest me, and get their admission stuff, and prepare to go to Japan next April! Life was going to be good… How naive I was… just a week after I submitted my application, I got the following email:

From: MEXT Scholarship Office To: xxxxx@xxxxx.com Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:54:17 PM Subject: MEXT Scholarship application review result (Please note that this letter was sent to you today via regular mail also.) Nicholas Wang XX-XX XXth St., Apt XX Astoria, NY 11103 May 25, 2007 Dear Nicholoas Wang: The initial evaluation of applicants for the 2008 Monbukagakusho Research Student Scholarship is now complete. This year’s selection process was particularly difficult because of the tremendous increase in highly qualified applicants. Consequently, it is with regret that we inform you that the Government of Japan is unable to invite you for further screening for a Research Student Scholarship for 2008. We appreciate the interest that you have shown in the Monbukagakusho Scholarship programs and sincerely hope that you will continue to pursue your desire to study in Japan. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. Sincerely yours, Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx Consul Consulate General of Japan in New York

OUCH!!!

Comments

marcela — 2009-06-10 16:02:57

they didn’t ask me this year for a Medical certificate :O :S

Dr Han Win Soe — 2008-06-20 02:40:14

Please ,you help me.I want to applicate Monbusho scholarship for 2009. Please you sent me information that I can try.

Monbukagakusho - the reason why I decided to go to Grad school in Japan

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:57:22 +0000

I’ve only just learned of this awesome Japanese government scholarship from my sister recently, after I told her that I’m being laid off. My sister was lucky enough to have done 2 exchange programs to Japan, once when she was in high school, she spent a summer in Kagoshima, Kyuushu. The second was in her last year in college, she went for a whole year at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. It was at Aoyama where she met people who was on the Monbukagakusho (Monbusho for short) scholarship. I’m a typical elder child in the house. I studied boring subjects in college, got myself stable jobs at Microsoft and Yahoo! Never strayed far from the planned path. When my sister got to do the summer home stay in Kagoshima, I was quite jealous of her. I never chose to have any fun in school, all I thought about was picking the “right” courses to prepare myself for a career in the computer industry. I really wished I had taken chances to relax and do something crazy. Now, I’ve just passed the big 30 mark. (and by just, I mean more than a year ago :P) I finally have enough skills and experience under my belt to make me feel safe. I begin to think about stepping out of the “stable zone”… doing the “crazy” stuff. I’ve had some crazy ideas, one was to make films about sharks. I love sharks! And I fucking hate Chinese people for eating shark fins! I wanted to put some bogus research on film saying that shark fins are cancerous! So they would stop eating shark fins! Yes, the idea is bat shit crazy!:D

Some more realistic ones include a few web based businesses that I’m trying to put into motion now, and finally, going to Japan… I hadn’t really thought about this one, but once my sister told me about the scholarship, I did some research… and now I’m not quiting until I am there! Monbukagakusho (文部科学省) literally stands for “Literature, Science, Ministry”. Their English name is Ministry of Education,culture,sports,science and technology (MEXT). They have been inviting international students to study in Japan at state expense since 1954. I got most of the information from this website, there are seven types of Japanese government-sponsored scholarships available - research students, teacher training students, undergraduate university students, Japanese studies students, college of technology students, special training students and YLP students. The only one that I can apply for is the “Research Students” one. When I read the qualifications, it really hit me hard!

You must be under 35 years of age and a college graduate (includes prospective graduates). Or you must have completed 16 years of schooling.

Must be under 35 years old… that’s like saying to me, “you’re almost too old to make a change in life!” It really got me thinking! Where am I in life? Like I said before, if I have child support and a mortgage to pay, I probably would’ve looked for a new job already. Even if I spend a little time opening my own web business, I can imagine I’ll be back in corporate America’s death grip within 1 ~ 2 years. So do I want that? My answer is no. I think I want to work for an American company, but I don’t want to work in the US anymore. Getting this scholarship and going to grad school in Japan will allow me to achieve that goal. So, I applied. The results? That’s for a later post. (Hint: FAILURE!!)

Comments

David — 2007-06-30 01:13:02

Hey Nicholas, I have the same dream you’re pursuing at the moment. I’m still wondering why? though… Let me tell my story, perhaps we’ll meet up later in tokyo… my story is kinda weird, once I finished my bachelor I thought there was something missing in my life, I was kinda nerdy guy, pretty good at math I guess you can imagine how i look like… Anyhow, pretty much a tedious life I had, So I decided to live my country as soon as I got my diploma ( 我是哥倫比亞人 I guess having taiwanese family you got used to Chinese :p ) and I went to Montreal to improve my language skills, I spent a great time over there, every night was a blast, as i was in private language center as communication drills they had different events every night… well… time was gone I had again to move on… as I found an opportunity to go to Taiwan, I swear I didn’t think twice, just to get the experience, as I gotta admit I had good times over there, even though at the beginning it was hard time to me, I didn’t speak mandarin and my only weapon was my broken English… Once sucks of everything I enrolled me in a language center to learn the language… I had good times, but when I thought twice and reflecting about life I figured out there was still something else missing, perhaps I understood in taiwan that, no matter how good you speak the language or you know the customs always you will be a 外國人, anyhow I was having a good time, so I thought for a long while better, that I needed to keep growing in the professional field ( By the way I admire you, having worked in such a famous company, as you can see I’m 24 year old, and still my work experiences are 0.0, I mean real ones… ) back to the track I thought to stay in an asian country for many reason I won’t explain ( I know it sounds funny, but I applied a MICMAC algorithm to take the rightest choice ) well… one back to my country I started to prepare my papers, and it took me 4 weeks to get the papers, recommendation and so on… well, the fact is to my country colombia, there are just 6 scholarships and as far as I know the day i sent the papers ( lacking almost one month more there were applying over 700 hundred people ), Today they are discussing which ones are the fortunates be in the pre selected pool of 50…. if i get any news, I’ll let you know :p wish me lucky, who knows, I don’t wanna tell you bye, But see you there buddy :p

cloneofsnake — 2007-07-09 13:41:36

Did the Japanese Consulate in Columbia told you that there was only 6 scholarships & there were >700 applicants?! Damn!! It looks like you’re really gonna need some luck here! What’s your Japanese language level? It looks like you have a pretty good command of English, and your mother tongue is Spanish, right? I would think that you already have an advantage there, knowing more languages than most in the USA. Let me know how it goes, I hope the info I put up here will help you too.

Monbukagakusho on Nick Wang

The Preparation and Result of my Monbukagakusho Application

Comments

Monbukagakusho - the reason why I decided to go to Grad school in Japan

Comments