To Those About to Begin Their University Years— Returning to My Alma Mater Thirty Years After High School Graduation —

For the thirtieth anniversary of my high school graduation, I found myself returning to my old school after many years.

Around this time of year, some students there may already have received their university acceptance letters. First of all, I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to all of you who have been accepted into university.

At the same time, I cannot help but think back to the day, many years ago, when I received my own acceptance letter.

I, too, know that deep, overwhelming joy.

When I was accepted into university, the joy was not just my family’s. It was almost a celebration for the entire village.
My family prepared a celebratory meal at home, and the house and yard were filled with neighbors and relatives who had come to congratulate us.

That day, it felt as if the whole courtyard was filled with praise and blessings.

My teachers were smiling with joy, as if one of their own children had been accepted into university.

Even now, I remember it clearly.

My father, then just past forty, was so happy that he danced in the yard, his stiff movements awkward but full of joy.

Those of you who are about to begin your university years must also be filled with excitement, anticipation, and longing for the new life that awaits you.

Being accepted into university means that, after years of hard work and persistence, you have finally achieved a goal you once dreamed of.
It is a reward for all that effort.

At the same time, it also means that you are about to begin a new chapter of life, one very different from what came before. You are standing at another starting point.

Of course, going to university does not guarantee a better life, nor does it promise what people often call success.

On the other hand, not going to university does not mean that a person’s life loses its meaning, or becomes ordinary and insignificant.

Each person has a way of living that suits them. Each person has a road that only they can walk.

Some people make their way along steep mountain paths. Others travel along smooth paved roads. Each road has its own scenery, along with hardships and joys that can only be experienced along the way.

Even so, to be given the opportunity to study at university is still something to be glad about, and something worth celebrating.

Because the special time and opportunity called “university” is not given to everyone, nor does it come at any time we choose.

Since you have been given that opportunity, I hope you will not think of university simply as a place you pass through in order to receive a single diploma.

University is a time to discover what you like, to think about what kind of person you want to become, and to explore the world and yourself as fully as you can.

That is why, as someone who has already lived through those years, I feel certain words welling up inside me. I cannot quite hold them back, and so I am writing them down.

What do the university years mean in a person’s life?

And if you do go to university, how might you spend those few years?

Based on my own experiences and reflections, I would like to speak about three things: time, learning, and foreign languages.

First, About Time

“Time is more precious than gold.”

“Do not waste even a moment.”

We have heard such sayings since elementary school, so often that we may have grown tired of them. Everyone knows, at least in principle, that time is precious.

But when a person truly understands this, deep in the heart, sometimes even with a kind of pain, that understanding is often accompanied by regret.

“How much time I let slip away.
I could have done so much more with those days.”

Of course, there is no period in life that is not important.

Even so, as someone older, and as someone who has already gone through university, I believe that the university years are among the most precious and radiant times in life.

That is because those few years are often the first time we experience something close to real freedom.

The word “freedom” may sound simple.

But in the course of a lifetime, how many periods do we truly have in which we can use our time freely?

Before university, we have to study even the subjects we dislike, and we must listen to the reminders and scoldings of parents and teachers.

Once we enter the workforce, we are pulled along by work and the need to make a living. In the workplace, we must also work with bosses and colleagues with whom we may not always feel at ease.

Of course, university life is not free from responsibility or restraint.

Still, compared with many other stages of life, it is surely one of the periods in which we have the greatest freedom to decide how we use our time.

You no longer have to memorize everything blindly or force yourself to dig deeply into every subject you do not like.

At university, to some extent, you can decide for yourself what to study, where to spend your time, and how to shape your daily life. There are also far fewer reminders from parents and teachers than before.

But when there are fewer people telling you what to do, it also means there are fewer people managing your life for you.

If you do not study, no one may scold you immediately. If you waste a whole day, no one else will bear the consequences for you.

You are free to use your time, but in the end, you are also the one responsible for how you have used it.

So the freedom you gain at university is not simply the freedom to live however you please.

It is closer to the freedom of having to take responsibility for your own choices and your own time.

In many cases, the university years are also not yet a time when you must earn all your living expenses entirely by yourself.

In that sense, we should not forget to be grateful to the parents who have made this possible for us. We should also feel grateful for the social environment that allows us to receive an education.

After living abroad for many years, I came to understand more deeply just how much it costs to study at university.

In Japan especially, university tuition can be a heavy burden for an ordinary family.

If, when I was a university student, I had had to pay tuition at the level common in Japan today, my family at that time could hardly have imagined sending me to university.

Of course, working part-time during university, getting a taste of the working world, and earning money through your own work can also be interesting and meaningful experiences.

But if you are not in a situation where you must spend all your study time working just to support your daily life, I hope you will not take it for granted. I hope you will cherish it and make good use of it.

I once heard someone say that, however long life may be, there are only three periods when a person can have relatively free time to read quietly.

The first is student life.

The second is one’s forties.

The third is after retirement.

But even within student life, in elementary school, the words, ideas, and books one can understand are still limited. In middle school and high school, most of one’s time is taken up by entrance examinations.

When I think about it this way, perhaps the time when one can truly search for and read books according to one’s own interests is the university years.

After graduating from university and entering the workforce, whether one likes it or not, much of one’s time is taken up by the demands of working life.

From then on, finding time for yourself can feel like trying to wring water from a dry towel.

Of course, I do not mean that reading books is the only worthwhile thing to do.

But one day, you may come to understand what a luxury it is to read freely according to your own interests, and to let yourself dream and imagine the future through books.

I read a great many books during my university years.

I spent much of my time in the library and reading rooms, and many of the books I read had little direct connection to my major.

They were simply books I liked, books I was curious about.

I especially read a lot of philosophy and biographies. Looking back now, those books played a considerable role in shaping my view of life and the world.

Those books did not immediately bring me a job or money.

But they became a foundation for how I see the world, understand people, and think about my own life.

As for the time of one’s forties and the time after retirement, those may not be directly relevant to those of you who are just about to enter university. I will leave that for another occasion.

Second, About Learning

Many people think that once they enter university, they will be free, and therefore they no longer need to study seriously. Some may think it is enough to get by somehow.

To be honest, that idea is neither completely right nor completely wrong.

As I said earlier, once you enter university, you do not have to force yourself to struggle to the very end with every subject you dislike.

Of course, in the first and second years, there will be required courses, so you cannot avoid studying altogether.

But for subjects that you truly do not enjoy, I think it is sometimes enough to study just enough to pass.

In my first semester at university, I also struggled because I had to attend classes and study in Chinese. I failed some subjects, and barely passed others.

But looking back now, that did not become a major problem in my life.

After entering university, you are no longer in the stage where a single examination score, like China’s national college entrance exam, the gaokao, can greatly determine the road ahead.

At university, you can begin to let go of the pressure to do equally well in every subject.

What matters more is gradually discovering what interests you and what you want to understand more deeply.

When it comes to learning that you truly like, however, I believe you should go as deep and as far as you can.

University libraries contain an astonishing number of books and materials.

Among them, there will surely be something that captures your interest. It does not matter if it has no direct connection to your major.

You do not need to judge too early or too carefully whether what you are learning will be immediately useful or help you find a job.

I have always thought that a person who can speak honestly, in their own words, about a field they truly care about is a real intellectual.

Such a person has charm. Such a person is worthy of respect.

I have spoken at length about books, but what I want to emphasize here is not only books themselves.

What matters is the time spent immersing yourself in something, and slowly forming your own thoughts through that process.

Society is always changing.

Especially now, digital technology and artificial intelligence are developing rapidly, and the world around us is changing at a breathtaking pace.

No one can accurately predict which areas of expertise or which kinds of knowledge will be useful in the future.

A technology or major that is popular today may not retain its value forever.

Knowledge that seems not very useful now may one day reveal unexpected value.

My own major was history. But after graduation, I began working in marketing research, a field not directly related to history.

That does not mean that what I learned at university became useless.

The ability to read large amounts of material and understand its background and context.

The habit of comparing different perspectives and arguments.

The ability to organize complex facts and express one’s own thoughts in words and writing.

These are abilities I still use in my work today.

Studying history also trained me to think about why different countries and societies have followed different paths. That experience has helped me in researching people from different countries, and in trying to understand different cultures and the thoughts of different consumers.

A major is one starting point on the road ahead. It is not a frame that confines your entire life.

So there is no need to worry too much about whether your major will match your future career perfectly.

What you study at university is important, but the way of thinking and the abilities you develop through that study may remain with you even longer.

Human beings cannot live by technology alone.

The more technology advances, the more people need the ability to judge what they want, what they believe is right, and what kind of world they wish to create.

In an age when AI can organize writing, search for information, and even translate foreign languages, it becomes all the more important to know what you want to ask.

Without thoughts of your own, you cannot judge whether the answers AI gives you are right or wrong.

You may not even be able to tell whether those answers are truly necessary for you.

In the age of AI, what matters is not simply whether you know how to use AI.

What matters more is whether you can judge where, why, and how to use it.

Tasks that can be repeated mechanically will eventually be done by AI faster and more accurately than humans can do them.

For that very reason, what becomes more important for human beings is the ability to ask questions, the ability to make judgments, and the ability to express one’s own thoughts in one’s own words.

At university, I hope you will not only practice finding correct answers quickly.

I hope you will also practice forming good questions, forming your own judgments, and explaining your thoughts to others.

Of course, reading books is not the whole of learning.

Make friends.

Take a part-time job.

Join clubs or student activities.

Travel.

If something sparks even a little interest in you, and as long as it does no harm to others, try it.

All of those experiences are opportunities. One day, they may become part of your life.

During my university years, I took part in many exchange activities with short-term international students and in international academic events.

Because my major was history, I had opportunities to visit historical sites together with scholars and students from Korea and Japan.

I also worked as a translator and interpreter at academic conferences.

I guided short-term students from Japan around Beijing, and I became friends with Japanese exchange students, meeting them often and talking about many things.

Through those experiences, I encountered a world that textbooks and academic books alone could never have shown me.

I saw how people from different countries could understand the same history in different ways.

I learned how to communicate with people whose languages and cultures were different from mine.

I also saw how the knowledge I had learned could be used in the real world.

Looking back, what I gained from university was not only knowledge from books.

By meeting people from different hometowns, different languages, and different ways of thinking, I came to realize that the world was far wider than I had once imagined.

Some encounters do not reveal their meaning at the time.

But many years later, they may change the direction of one’s path, or even the way one understands the world.

So I hope you will also think of meeting people as a kind of learning.

The people I met at university, and the experiences I had through international exchange, not only helped improve my foreign-language skills. They also became an important foundation for my later work with people from many different countries, and for my involvement in international business.

Third, About Foreign Languages, Especially English

Perhaps I do not even need to say this, but I hope you will learn English during your university years to a level where you can use it comfortably and confidently.

English has become almost a basic skill for expressing your thoughts in a wider world.

If you can use English, you gain access to more information, meet more people, and have a much wider range of paths and opportunities open to you.

And when I see someone use English fluently, even though it is not their mother tongue, I still find it impressive and attractive.

I do not think I am the only one who feels that way.

I began studying English after entering university, and I have kept studying it since graduation.

Even now, however, when I speak or read in English, I often find myself stuck for words or struggling to move smoothly through the language. Each time that happens, I feel a little regret.

Instead, during my university years, I devoted a great deal of time to studying Japanese.

By the time I was in my fourth year, I could read Japanese books and speak with Japanese people at a level close to students majoring in Japanese.

I can now work in a Japanese company and deal with Japanese clients with a certain degree of ease, largely because I have confidence in my Japanese.

I still have particular confidence in my understanding of Japanese grammar.

How did I study Japanese during university?

First, I prepared for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

In addition, I repeatedly listened to recordings and dialogue from Japanese dramass I liked, almost to the point of memorizing them.

I also searched for Japanese books in the library and read them.

I actively joined activities where I guided short-term students from Japan around Beijing.

I also made friends with Japanese exchange students and met them once or twice a week to talk about all kinds of things.

Spending as much time as possible immersed in Japanese eventually helped improve my Japanese.

A foreign language cannot become truly yours simply by sitting at a desk and looking at a textbook.

You need to listen a lot, read a lot, speak it aloud, and come into contact as much as possible with people who use that language.

Do not be afraid of making mistakes. You have to actually use the language.

Learning a foreign language is not simply memorizing vocabulary and grammar.

Through that language, you encounter other people’s ways of thinking, ways of living, and ways of seeing the world.

After graduating from university, there will be less time to study, and fewer opportunities to use English.

Once you are swept along by working life, even things you once knew can gradually fade.

And as you grow older, learning a new language requires more effort and more time.

That is why, if possible, I hope you will learn English during your university years to a level where you can use it comfortably and confidently.

If circumstances allow, spending a year or two studying in an English-speaking country would be a very valuable experience.

Even if long-term study abroad is not possible, I hope you will actively look for opportunities to use English in real situations, such as short-term programs, exchange programs, or international exchange activities.

Finally

I had meant to write only a few words, but before I knew it, the piece had grown quite long.

This essay is, after all, based only on what I experienced and felt during my own university years.

So not every word here will apply to everyone in the same way.

If something touches your heart, take it as a point of reference.

If something does not align with your own thinking, you may simply let it pass as the private reflections of someone who came before you.

As someone who has gone through those years before you, I have simply written honestly about the things I look back on with some regret, and the things I truly wish to tell those who are about to begin theirs.

As I have said more than once, university is not a measure of the value of a person’s life.

Each person has a way of living and a road that suits them.

Going to university does not necessarily lead to a full and happy life.

Not going to university does not make a life meaningless or dull.

Even so, for much of history, learning was not something granted to everyone.

In a certain sense, it was a rare opportunity, precious enough to be called a luxury.

To be able to study at university today is also a kind of good fortune, and a rare opportunity worth cherishing.

Seen against the span of a whole life, the years one spends as a university student are only a brief season.

That season does not have to be perfect.

There may be times when you lose your way.

There may be things you planned but cannot complete.

What matters is not following a path someone else has defined as the right one.

What matters is that you discover your own interests and possibilities, and gradually make those years your own.

I sincerely hope that each of you who is about to begin your university years will spend those years with joy, meaning, and fulfillment.

If this essay can be of even the smallest help as you begin your university life, I would be truly glad.　(End)

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