On Nov 29, 2019, an international student internship round table was held in the meeting room of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers under the auspices of JSME International Union (JSME-IU). On the day, 30 international students participated, mainly from universities in the Kanto region. More than half of the students participated in first-year masters and second-year doctors who refrained from job hunting, but there were also students from fourth-year undergraduates to third-year doctors.

Six companies participated, and students were seated in six tables. Some students still have a short period of stay in Japan and are not accustomed to Japanese or English, and so two of the six tables have English and Chinese interpreters, making it easy for students and companies to Communication.

On the day of the meeting, JSME-IU Committee Chairperson Furukawa gave a greeting. After that, Mr. Kanno of Recruit Career Co., Ltd., who commissioned the management of this project, explained the outline of the event. In addition, many international students are not well familiar in Japan’s job hunting system, and so Mr. Huang, a former international student who is currently working for IHI Corporation, introduced his own experience in job hunting, internships, and working in Japanese company.

At the round-table discussion, each company explained its business and internship program through presentations using its own pamphlets and PCs. In response to this, the round-table talks proceeded in the form of responding to questions from students and were actively discussed. Each company visited a table with international students every 25 minutes, and so the international students could listen to the stories of all companies at the roundtable, and the company could communicate with all international students.

In the questionnaire after the event, many students expressed their impression that it was good to participate in the roundtable discussion, and many students were able to interact well with participating companies. There are many international students who do not have an image of working at a Japanese company and do not understand the job-hunting process. For such international students, this internship was considered as a good opportunity to think about their own career development. This time it was held as a round-table discussion related to the internship, and there were opinions from international students that they were able to learn more about Japanese companies. On the other hand, even in the mechanical field, students have a wide range of specialized research fields. JSME-IU will deepen discussions on how to meet the needs of students with broader backgrounds and matching with more specialized companies for the master and doctor students. We would like to have more discussion and to make this meeting more meaningful in future.

Qi An, The University of Tokyo