FAQ on Graduate school and entrance examinations

Q1
What is the supervising system to help graduate students finish their doctoral thesis?

Immediately after entering the school, graduate students decide their research topics and are assigned three supervising faculty regardless of their specialty. Of the three supervising faculty, one is the main supervisor and the other two are sub-advisors, allowing for detailed supervision from a variety of perspectives. As a supervising course, a preparatory project seminar is set from first year to second year. Graduate students participate in the seminar as well as preparatory Doctoral thesis presentations, and through the individual supervision by faculty, and their participation as a researcher, they each refine their research and can submit their preparatory doctoral thesis by the end of the second year. From third year, they participate in project seminars, as well as research projects as fellow researchers and present their research results in research presentations. Furthermore, they can participate in other research topics and projects as associate researchers.

In this way, at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, students do not just specialize in one field but can make judgments from different research perspectives. In order to nurture researchers who can apply imagination to advance their research within a wide network, we have prepared a supervising system unseen anywhere else.

Q2
What are the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences on campus facilities?

The Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences is located at Kinugasa campus in Kyoto. Nearby are historical spots such as Kinkaku-ji temple, Ryoan-ji temple, and Ninan-ji temple, and the area is full of the atmosphere of the ancient capital. Ritsumeikan’s Kinugasa campus is a place where you can feel the tradition and innovation that make up Kyoto’s cultural environment.

At the Gakujikan Hall, which is the center of graduate student facilities, there are two computer rooms where you can search the entire research and information systems of the school. Furthermore, there is also an IT independent study room, where students can edit image/video, set up databases and carry out other practices. As students of the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, they can carry out independent research in the shared graduate student research facility, especially set for the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences. There students can also further their research and take part in vigorous debate in the project rooms that are prepared depending on research topic. Furthermore, from the doctoral preparatory thesis review, each student and collaborative researcher is guaranteed their own desk.

Adjacent to the Gakujikan Hall, there is the library and research centers and laboratories. Ritsumeikan’s academic archives hold over 2,090,000 books and journals, and is actively collecting and providing resources in electronic and traditional forms.

Q3
I will finish a doctoral program at another university next spring. Although you have a doctoral full-term program at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, is it possible to enter from third year?

From 2005, when the first third year students were present, it became possible to enter from third year. In the 2005 school year, 11 third year students entered, while 2006, there were six third year entrants. It is also possible to aim for the “Accelerated Program” where it is possible to obtain a PhD degree in, at the shortest, three years since entering at first year.
In the 2003 school year, of the 40 graduate school entrants, 13 finished their Master’s programs, while in the 2004 school year, the number was 18 out of 29 and 4 out of 26 (excluding the third year entrants) in 2005. Of these, the following aimed for the Accelerated Program: eight in 2003, 10 in 2004, and five in 2005. In the 2006 school year, all the students who finished their Master’s programs entered the doctoral program in their third year.

Credits earned at other graduate programs may be recognized at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences upon review at the faculty meeting.
*Accelerated Program …. students who outstanding research performance, students who have a certain number of credits before finishing in the five year period, or students who have passed the thesis and written examination can be eligible to finish their doctoral program if in the time for over three years.

Q4
What is the aim of the Self-Recommendation and Adult Self-Recommendation Entrance Examinations?

At the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, through the Self-Recommendation and Adult Self-Recommendation Entrance Examinations, we try to recruit “students who can combine their personal experience/research related to the four research fields into their students” . The students of the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences have obtained a fundamental discipline at the undergraduate level, and draft projects that integrate their specific theme of research. While taking a lead in problem solving, they clear the way for new fields of research by going beyond existing areas, and contribute knowledge to the contemporary world. This recommendation entrance examination system was established in order to find students equipped with the intellectual stamina to take on such programs. Applicants to the Adult Self-Recommendation Entrance Examination must have over one year of working experience. Note: students who pass the Adult Self-Recommendation Entrance Examination are not eligible for the “Special Support Scholarship”.

While a written examination is not part of the entrance examination process, it is understood that it is necessary to have foreign language skills as a researcher.

Our Pamphlets & Posters Publications Our Bulletin Core Ethics