JETAA DC Grad School Night Panel Discussion and Networking Event – March 31
Advice, Events, Graduate School, JETAA Chapters 
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“2009 JETAADC Grad School Night Panel Discussion and Networking Event” on Tuesday, March 31 at 6:30pm.
Event: 2009 JETAADC Grad School Night Panel Discussion and Networking Event
“Come to eat, drink, and discuss opportunities with various graduate school programs. ”
Time: Tuesday, March 31 at 6:30pm
Where: Old Ambassador’s Residence, adjacent to the Japanese Embassy.
To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=61450641385&mid=289272G1faf3ed5G1cb332bG7
Grad school? Journalism? Time to question assumptions says TheDigitalists.com
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My brother Greg, an online marketing/media expert, has another thoughtful post on TheDigitalists.com, this one offering some perspectives on graduate school and journalism, two topics of interest to many a JET alum. (Note as well the hint of sibling rivalry.)
Grad Schools and the Shifting Job Landscape
Lots of people go to grad school for the wrong reasons. My brother, who has a JD but no longer practices, has made it his mission in life to dissuade as many aspiring law-school applicants as he can. And rightly so. Far too many liberal-arts grads assume law school is the only answer to the question, “What do you do with a BA in English?”
Meanwhile, New York magazine is reporting on journalism schools, specifically Columbia, experiencing yet another “existential crisis.” (For those keeping score, this is the 54,978th such crisis in the last 30 years.) And, of course, business schools are grappling with the fact that the main industry to which they have funneled most of their graduates has suddenly imploded.
I think the fundamental problem these programs are facing is that, as professional schools, they were set up to train graduates in a profession. Lawyer. Journalist. Banker. Marketer. The problem is, the definitions of those jobs are not only changing, they’re blurring together.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST
Update: As if on cue, there’s an article in Sunday’s NY Times titled “Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?“
A JET alum recently asked if anyone is aware of any scholarships for Americans to study in Japan, particularly in connection with TESOL or applied linguistics.
Any suggestions? Please post in the comments section of this post for the benefit of others, or feel free to e-mail jetwit at jetwit dot com.
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
Request: Seeking self-employed, freelancers, telecommuters, and start-up entrepreneurs who work at home or at coffeeshops for a graduate research project
Career, Graduate School, Writers Comments Off on Request: Seeking self-employed, freelancers, telecommuters, and start-up entrepreneurs who work at home or at coffeeshops for a graduate research project
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This request is from Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06), webmaster for both JETAA NY and JetWit. He is currently a masters candidate at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.
Hi JetWit’ers,
I am working on a research and design project targeting the self-employed, freelancers, entrepreneurs and others who work at home, in coffeeshops, or in a co-working space (basically anywhere that is not a traditional office environment). If any of the above describes the way you do your work, I would love to ask you a few questions about your physical work space and professional networking needs.
Please email me at leesean /atto/ nyu /dotto/ edu if you are interested in helping out. I could meet in person over coffee, schedule a quick interview over the phone or we could just have a conversation over email, whatever works for you. Thanks!
JetWit would like to extend a big omedetou gozaimashita to professional translator and writer Kia Cheleen (CIR, Aichi-ken 1996-98, ALT 1998-1999) who was recently named Assistant Director at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia Unviversity. The position was previously held by Miho Walsh, former JET Coordinator at the Consulate General of Japan (NY) who left the Donald Keene Center to become Associate Director at the Asian Cultural Council.
JetWit is happy to see that JET alums are movin’ on up (movin’ on up), to the West Side.
Japanese Convenience Store Clerk Dissertation by JET Alum
Academic, Graduate School, Interview/Profile, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, Writers Comments Off on Japanese Convenience Store Clerk Dissertation by JET Alum
I recently learned about an interesting JET alum named Gavin Whitelaw (whom I’ve never met) whose doctoral dissertation at Harvard’s Reischauer Institute involved 18-months of “observant” participation as a convenience store clerk in Japan. Through his writing he then “sought to describe the lifeworld of these stores and understand their cultural significance as industrial system, social arrangement, and personal practice.”
In August 2008, Gavin began working in Tokyo on a new collaborative project through the Asian-Japan Research Center. The project focuses on “the role popular culture plays in the formation of Asian identities” and “the impact of Chinese and Japanese trends in other Asian societies.”
Click here to read Gavin’s introduction with regard to the project. If I can get in touch with him, perhaps we can post a link to his unique dissertation in the near future.
Thunderbird Grads?
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I saw on the JETAA Pacific Northwest e-mail list that a JET alum is looking for perspectives and advice from other JET alums about Thunderbird School of Global Management’s program. If you graduated from Thunderbird, please feel free to get in touch with me if you’d like to talk to the JET alum. Or go ahead and post your comments below.
WIT Life #23: Oyaji Bentos
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
One segment of today’s news went into a lunchroom where a group of men sat around with their bentos. The announcer assumed that they had been made for them by their beloved wives (愛妻弁当), but it turned out the men had made them themselves. They profiled several of these groundbreaking pioneers, all in their 30s. 
One bachelor had been cooking for himself the past year, explaining that each morning he simply put together leftovers from the night before to make his lunch. However, he confessed that he would like to “find someone who could do this for me.” Another single bento-maker revealed his secret to be Read More
JETAA NY webmaster and NYU ITP grad student Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06) was pleased to see his ITP presentation from Wednesday and Thursday written up and photographed in a post today on Gizmodo (the gadget blog).
Lee-Sean used an accelerometer to create headphones that change the music depending on your head movements.
Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06), JETAA NY’s webmaster and a grad student in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, will be presenting his interactive music interface, the head(banger)
phones, at the Interactive Telecommunications Winter Show at NYU this
Wednesday and Thursday nights (tonight and tomorrow night). So drop in to take a look. (721 Broadway, 4th Fl – just east of Washington Sq Park)
The show features a variety of interactive sights, sounds and physical
objects created by student artists. The show is FREE and open to the
public. No need to RSVP. Just show up any time during the 2 nights.
http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2008/
Dec. 17th & 18th from 5pm to 9pm
@ 721 Broadway, 4th Fl
Lee-Sean AKA JETAANY.org Webmaster
http://leesean.net
New Graduate School page on JetWit
Academic, Career, Graduate School Comments Off on New Graduate School page on JetWit
Have a look at the new Graduate School page on JetWit.com. These are schools and programs that tend to be popular with JET alumni.
- If you know of a school that should be added, or
- If you attended one of the programs and want to add some information or comments or would be willing to be contacted if other JET alums want to talk to people who have attended your program
just send an e-mail to jetwit /atto/ jetwit /dotto/ com.
Event at Center on Japanese Economy and Business: Lessons from the Japanese Bubble for the U.S.
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Thanks to CJEB’s Jennifer Olayon (Nagasaki-ken, 1999-2000) for passing this along.
Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School Panel Discussion:
Lessons from the Japanese Bubble for the U.S.
Panelists
Takeo Hoshi, Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego
Paul Sheard, former Global Chief Economist, Lehman Brothers
Michael Woodford, John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy, Economics Department, Columbia University
Moderator
David E. Weinstein, Carl S. Shoup Professor of the Japanese Economy, Economics Department, Columbia University; Associate Director of Research, Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School
Wednesday, November 19
4:30 – 6:00PM
Uris Hall, Room 301, 3022 Broadway
Co-sponsored by the Program on Alternative Investments, Center on Japanese Economy and Business of Columbia Business School; Columbia University’s Program for Economic Research and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
For more information and registration details, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu/cjeb
Job: 1/2 Time Program Coordinator at Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia U.
Career, Graduate School, Jobs, Music Comments Off on Job: 1/2 Time Program Coordinator at Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia U.
They are seeking a half-time Program Coordinator to work aproximately 20 hours per week. Salary is commensurate with experience. The position is open immediately. Training will be provided.
See below for more details about the position. Read More
Electric Chair Bear
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Click here to see a recent blog post from Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2004-06) on the Electric Chair Bear project he’s working on with his classmates. Lee-Sean, who is the JETAA NY webmaster as well as the JetWit.com webmaster, is currently doing grad work in alternative media at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) which requires a great deal of blogging on topics that are simultaneously fascinating and completely esoteric.
