Junior Scholars Collaboration Initiative (JSCI)

To promote students’ learning communities

In April 2010, the Komaba Organization for Educational Development (KOMED) renewed as the Komaba Organization for Educational Excellence (KOMEX). The Junior Scholars Collaboration Initiative (JSCI) is a devison of the KOMEX, especially intended for promoting first-year/sophomore experience in higher education.

Our aim is to contrive schemes for junior students in the college of arts and sciences to fully make an advantage of liberal arts education. The University of Tokyo is famed for its high stress put on the exyended (two years of junior course) liberal arts education which is obligatory to all the freshmen. This system makes dekay for students to choose and focus on their specialized studies (late specialization). To make this unique system effective, giving opportunity for junior students to have views of specialized resarch fields and professional worlds (early exposure) would be fruitful.

Encoraging students to organize events, group works, and communicate with wider societies based on reliable academic knowledge is expected to not only expose them to fields of specialities in early stage, but also help to foster tough students. Instillation of personal resilience and intellectual toughness are among the central themes in the University of Tokyo Action Senario (FOREST 2015), which is proclaimed by the president Junichi Hamada.