My name is Sayuri, I'm part of the Master of Environmental Management Development Program. I'm an international student so that makes me a full-time student but I work part-time at the Japanese supplementary school as a grade 6 Japanese teacher, and I teach Japanese literature and Mathematics, based on the Japanese curriculum.
What did you study in your undergraduate?
"I did my undergrad in Japan, it was a Bachelor of Arts in policy management whiich basically doesn't really mean much. It basically just means you have a focus in policy, but my main focus was in Environment and Development policy.
Why did you apply to Crawford School?
"I actually worked in the automobile sector for a couple of years. I was working in the marine division for marketing in sales in Southeast Asia, and that's when it got me thinking, this is one of my favorite phrases, 'Give a man a fish, he'll live for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll live for a lifetime', and I felt like workng there was giving a man a fish, whereas I felt like was the rest of my career, I want to be teaching a man to fish, so that's when I thought, I should move on to do further study in the Development and Environmental management field."
How did you hear about Crawford School?
"Initially, I wanted to study/ do research on development in Southeast Asia and I realized that the two options that were best would be studying Masters in Japan, or in Australia. I thought studying abroad would give me more opportunities and make it easier to get a scholarship to cover my tuition, so that's when I cam to the decision of selecting a Masters program in Australia. I literally went through all the program related to environment or development studies in Australia, listed them out, listed highlights, characteristics, and ended up realising EMDV Program from ANU was the perfect match."
What was the process of applying to Crawford School?
"Usually, when you're an international student, especially if you're from Japan, you'd have to pay for studying abroad consultancy service, to help you with the application, but in my case, the ANU and the Environmental Management and Development (EMDV) program coordinators were actually the ones who looked after my process, step by step."
Can you describe a typical day at Crawford School?
"A typical day at ANU would basically be, wake up,do reading, go to classes, go home, do even more reading and right now, we're at the end of the semester, so that's a lot of writing because most of the classes require you to write final essays and sort of integrate the theories and cast studies that they've taught, and put them all together, and make sense out of it in your certain way. I currently did an internship at Myanmar with a local NGO, doing research on gender in small-scale fisheries there, so this whole semester, I've been additionally writing up the research report as well as revising it, so that's been keeping me busy.."
What skills will this degree help you develop?
" I would definitely want to be working as a researcher in the field of development and environmental management, and that realisation has definiftely come from the research internship that I did in Myanmar, but not only the internship but the degree itself, the courses, what the lecturers have to offer, what sort of readings they provide, what sort of skills they ask of you through the assignments all lead up to becoming a better researcher.."
What is your favourite thing about Crawford School?
" I honestly love a lot of things. But if I were to sum it up, I would say I love the flexibility and the openness and the willingness throughout the whole program, lectures and the engagement among students as well as how when they teach, they have to embrace the complexity and flexible."
TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12002 (Australian University) | CRICOS Provider Code: 00120C