Vivien
Graduate School of Political Science
ICC Student Staff Leader
August 2020 – March 2023
A new chapter as a Waseda student
I first heard of the ICC from a dorm friend who worked as an SSL (Student Staff Leader). As I had been a dormitory Resident Assistant (RA) during my undergraduate years, I chose to continue helping to improve student life as part of my graduate school journey as well. With a balance of my personal life and projects, working at the ICC was a great experience. It helped me strengthen my management skills and provided me translatable tools for the corporate world.
I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey. I’m looking forward to meeting you all after graduation too for a coffee or billiards.
A journey of change
The most memorable in the two years is how ICC helped me strengthen my agile mindset and embrace change. Since the pandemic had already started when I joined, ICC needed to shift to online events and work environment.
Changing to remote and hybrid work environment within a short period was not easy.
We tested several online event platforms and management methods. While challenging, organizing events during such period was a fruitful experience: it helped us to think in terms of risk management and to always prepare thoroughly with multiple back-ups plans and thinking of possible scenarios (reduced number of participants, Wi-Fi connection issues, etc.).
Moreover, within the situation of the pandemic, I personally saw the PR opportunity ICC had to help brighten the lives of students over the past year. Within two years we have rebooted the PR team and gained approximately 1500 followers with a revised strategy and updated visual contents.
Of course, the process took longer than it sounds. A sentence I will always remember from the experience is henka wo tanoshimu koto (enjoy the change). Without forgetting the amount of planning and work behind each event, I believe it taught all staff how the recipe of a successful event depends on the amount of time invested in preparation.
A journey of action
Something I will remember through this experience is seeing everyone taking actions. From staff proposing events that may challenge societal norms, to students who take the courage and step in events with strangers for the first time, and other areas such as improving email writing or personal fashion or applying for internships after work, it is always nice to see this human effort being an essence of the day-to-day work.
While being here gave me the chance to work using mainly business Japanese, it was also an opportunity to experience how ICC is taking action in improving the campus life for students through available means. No matter experiences all staff and here is actively their own perspective to really provide what would be considered as intercultural communication.
While inviting firms from various field and foreign company in Japan, the ICC offered to students including me the reality of the corporate work going global and working in Japan.
A journey of growth
On top of sharpening my existing skillset (event planning, leadership, logical thinking), ICC provided me rich opportunities to strengthen business Japanese skill and understanding of Japanese work culture (hourenso: PDCA=Plan Do Check Action, Kaizen, etc.), global mindset, analytical problem-solving skills.
On the other hand, ICC also continuously provided opportunities to sharpen weaknesses I have such as public speaking in front of large audiences, varying from 30 to 150 students, in both English and Japanese (and French on occasion).
As the event MC during the JAL event in 2023 (photo by ICC)
I also tried to “give back” by adding value to the ICC. Working in a Japanese startup as a CEO office intern for the past two years, I made sure to organically connect my knowledge from both workplaces in a healthy manner: sharing my acquired knowledge, on social media strategy planning and content production, project and time-management, and team and goal management, to ICC staff.
Overall, working here was a really exciting personally as I could see the growth and journey of my peers, from newcomers to new graduates. Achieving success in my first organized events, dealing with job-hunting stress, dealing with work-life balance, starting personal projects, chatting about study-abroad or career plans, debating whether to go to the gym or play billiards tonight, etc. Being part of each of these unique journeys definitely broadened my perspective on life and will occupy a spot in my heart. I look forward to catching up with updates in the future.
Conclusion
ICC recruits SSLs on this page every year. Please give it a try! Feel free to write in the application that you read this post. You can also find past reports here.
This was a nice writing exercise, which helped me realize (and put in words) how working in the ICC helped to better shape my mindset and attitude as a professional, such as planning from 0 to 1, leadership and attitude toward work, continuous improvement process.
If you think about it, there are not many opportunities like this one for students, to the point we sometimes don’t notice the opportunities we have.
Feel free to give it a try, and make sure to put enough thought and preparation in the process. Best luck for your journey at Waseda and perhaps at the ICC. We have a student lounge (Bldg. 3) so feel free to come say hi.
Thank you and wish you the best.
