Any of you guys have experience with going to Japan and doing a Doctorate in Engineering?
I'd like input as of I'm thonking about it.
Thanks,
j

... anyone?

Could you get in touch with some Japanese universities that do your subject at postgrad level and ask whether they have any international students in your field that you could contact? Would the Japanese Embassy be able to help at all?

Usually on here, when there's a deathly silence and virtual tumbleweeds blowing through a thread, it's generally because no one can help, although I'm sure they would if they could. Good luck anyway!

Hi -
I don't know about engineering, but I know a little about lab-based PhDs here in Japan and it's not good. The supervisor-student relationship here seems to be even more exploitative, although these are just anecdotal observations.
I'm humanities, and PhDs from Japan in humanities aren't regarded well. It might be different from science. Some do it though, especially if they are on the MEXT government scholarship, but that is really hard to live off these days...
On the other hand, Japan is a great place to be for a few years!

There was an article in the Times Higher Education this week (which you can probably find by searching their website) all about the higher education sector in Japan. It was basically saying that Japanese Univerities are suffering from under-enrollment and struggling to adapt to changes in the world education system. This has the effect of poor reputation for research in Japan and poor representation in the world university rankings for Japanese Universities.

I think Japan would be an amazing place to live/vist, but a PhD from even a top Japanese Univeristy seems to be less highly regarded than one from the UK/US.

My comment as a foreigner working in Japan as Associate Professor:
It depends very much. I would say that Japan is different from other advanced countries in that there is much more variation in everything, more high tech in some fields and more low tech in others. As someone said in this thread, in international rankings, Japan often does not shine, but that is not necessarily the fault of the teaching personal, and these rankings themselves are dubious as well.
There is a tremendous difference in culture between different Universities, and even between different departments of the same University.
When someone from a Japanese humanities department says it is exploitative ... that has maybe more to do with the professors who have read their Marx then with the Japanese Educational system as such. Any more specific questions (in which subject to you want to make your PhD?)

======= Date Modified 05 Dec 2008 02:32:30 =======
======= Date Modified 05 Dec 2008 02:31:38 =======
Sorry, ignore this posting, I screwed up something.