Message to those aiming for the College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation

　What do you think Kanazawa University’s “College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation” is like?
　College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation is a brand-new college, not just in a sense that it was recently established in 2021, but also it is where you can learn things in ways that are completely different from conventional learning methods.

　Then what kind of learning do they actually offer? College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation is where students are expected to learn actively. Some of you may wonder if this is about “Active Learning,” the phrase you hear often recently, however, the learning I am discussing here actually requires more active engagement than so-called “Active Learning” does. Rather than simply obtaining specialized knowledge actively, you are expected to figure out “why,” “what,” and “how” you learn in active and proactive manner, which makes you the protagonist of your learning process.

　We believe that there are two things to learn actively in a true sense: your “activeness” as a protagonist who questions “why”; and interdisciplinary skills, or “the ability to understand the essence of things and put them together consistently.”

　The questions “why” and “what” you learn lie within you, the protagonist. They are woven in the story of your own life. In other words, you will be learning things while asking yourself as to why you learn them or what you learn, in order to achieve your future goals.
Our system allows students to back-cast their future goals or ideal selves, create their own “learning plan" as a roadmap, create their own curriculum on which they will be learning while utilizing “elective subjects ,” or courses that students can take regardless of the school/college they belong to. This learning will become part of the process of creating the story of your life in which you play the protagonist, which makes Kanazawa University’s College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation part of your story. This means that you incorporate Kanazawa University’s College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation into your story, rather than Kanazawa University’s College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation incorporates you. You are the protagonist, and you will be working actively and proactively in a true sense.
　We believe that it is necessary to have interdisciplinary skills in order to create a story and learn actively and proactively in a true sense. In a TV drama, for example, each story needs to be developed within limited time. To do that, the contents and situations are narrowed down while keeping the storylines consistent. This is where the interdisciplinary skills, or “the ability to understand the essence of things and put them together consistently” is utilized. You, the protagonist in your story, are the one to actively pick “what” to learn, or the essence in your story. In other colleges and schools, what’s being taught is given by someone else other than you. They teach you specialized knowledge within the boundaries of an academic field, whether it is law or medicine, for example. When comparing the volume of knowledge in a particular academic field, it is probably better to learn at a school or college specializing in the area of study. However, you are living your life, or your story, and we believe it is necessary to learn the essence or the core of the story, not just in one area but all areas. Also, while it is very important to understand the essence or the core, you don’t necessarily need to stick to tiny details of the specialized area. The College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation allows you to weave your own life or your story with interdisciplinary skills developed through projects and exercises, actively make decisions on “why” and “what” you learn, and learn the essence of the core part of the academic field.

　You, the protagonist with interdisciplinary skills are the person who build the world. This is where “you” becomes “we.” You are not the only character who appear in the story but various people do. Then the story and the world of the whole stage are built. The world here is more like worldview, rather than the countries around the world. They come in various sizes, with no superiority or inferiority assumed. One world’s story may be dense involving a small number of people, another world’s story may be on a grand scale involving all human beings. The world has people other than you, which makes the story even deeper and more complex. In the world, you are not nobody to other people; you and other people influence one another in various relationships. Most, if not all, of these relationships are built up by you the protagonist, rather than naturally induced or given. In order to build up a relationship, you need interdisciplinary skills to bring together us, including you. I have mentioned that the interdisciplinary skills, are “the ability to understand the essence of things and put them together consistently,” and I do believe that it is desired to be able to understand each individual, and build up relationships consistently with each one of them, in other words, to build up the world by bringing us together with your interdisciplinary skills that you developed in the College of Transdisciplinary Sciences for Innovation.

　We are waiting for you, someone who will weave your story with interdisciplinary skills and build up the world and future.