This article is a record of interviews conducted by first-year SPSF students with their seniors who completed graduation theses. For more details, please see here.

Interviewee: Iku Nakamura (Department of Education, Year 3, Early Graduate)
Interviewer: Osuke Sakuma (Department of Global Studies,Year 1)

Nakamura is a third-year student from the department of education. Due to her high levels of academic achievement, she proceeded to graduate school a year earlier than the regular four-year graduation schedule. She plans to enroll in the graduate program at Tokyo University, majoring in international relations and public management.

As a student from the department of education, her research topic focuses on educational policies as political tools, specifically on education for peace in Japan. Her graduation thesis incorporates an interdisciplinary approach by involving politics, which highlights the unique opportunities for SPSF students to gain wider perspectives from different academic fields. In addition, her experience of giving a speech about nuclear disarmament as a youth representative in the United Nations provided her with the idea to research about tension between education and politics.

Regarding the graduation thesis, she struggled to situate her research topic within pre-existing academia due to a wider range of knowledge related to education and politics. However, she managed the contents by following pre-existing resources during the process of developing her own ideas on this complex issue. Finally, Nakamura San advised current and prospective students to take advantage of the diverse environment in SPSF to broaden their perspectives.