Message

Do you know the book titled “Beans: Four Principles for Running a Business in Good Times or Bad”? The book tells us about a small private cafe in Seattle where is neither a famous chain store nor located in a good location. Nevertheless, local people have loved the cafe for a long time, to such an extent that they wait in line in front of the cafe since morning every day. This is a true story in the best sense of the word. The cafe still exists in Seattle and I have a chance to drink a cup of cafe latte there. This book is a business book describing the reason why people love this small common cafe. The owner of the cafe holds the belief that, important things to run the cafe are Passion, Person, Personal and Product. These “four Ps” create aspirations and goals. If you don’t know what your goal is, you won’t notice that the goal is reached even if it was reached. It is said at the beginning of this book that,“everything arises from the passion”. In other words, passion is the most important thing. I think this is predictable and insipid, but I also feel from my heart that it rings very true. Many students in the Department of Science and Engineering go to graduate school without any clear reasons. They don’t know what they want to research for and what benefits they hope to get from the experience. Their real reason may be because of their friends. However, I want you to attend graduate school with these feelings: you do wonder what you see, you feel happy when you made something and they go the way you want them to, and you are enjoy when you understand something you don’t understand before. After all, when you’ve found an area you love, what could be better than spending time with it and getting to know it better? I would like you to keep in mind that the most important thing for doing anything is the belief and hope that the belief, “everything arises from the passion”, described in this book will stay in mind of young people who aspire to become researchers or engineers in the future. People who engage in education and development fields should put more effort into their research. If you work wholeheartedly on research, the research will give you an impression which you have never had. Young researchers who are going to do research on materials should practice “doing research with passion”. If you do so, you will be drawn into the wonderful world of research.

Nagahiro Saito