Tokyo Institute of Technology’ “ToTAL” welcomes eleven new students

The Tokyo Tech Academy for Leadership (ToTAL) has welcomed eleven new graduate-level students as the fifth cohort of December 2022 to its program. A registration ceremony and orientation for the new students were held on December 5 on Suzukakedai Campus.

New ToTAL students at registration ceremony

Established in April 2018, ToTAL offers a five-year extracurricular program for graduate students. The academy’s mission is to provide leadership excellence education to empower students in the science and technology fields to develop core expertise and the leadership skills to bring out the best in each other and become innovative global citizens in a rapidly-changing era.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Tokyo Tech Executive Vice President for Education Jun-ichi Imura congratulated the students who passed the screening test and joined the ToTAL program. He provided an outline of ToTAL and briefly explained the three seeds of leadership that ToTAL aims to nurture in their students. He also emphasized that ToTAL offers cutting-edge classes and workshops like no other educational program. He encouraged the new students to fully utilize the learning environment to acquire leadership skills and demonstrate those skills not only at ToTAL but also in research and other activities outside of the academy.

Tokyo Tech Provost and Executive Vice President for Institute Strategy Isao Satoh also gave a speech to the new students. He encouraged them to value the human connections created at ToTAL, and to strive to acquire leadership mindsets and skills from the advanced classes and workshops offered by the academy.

Following Satoh’s remarks, Professor Yutaka Akiyama, director of ToTAL, wished the students the best on their future endeavors. He highlighted that while the world is facing a high degree of uncertainty and volatility, he expects students to develop skills to cope with issues flexibly and robustly. To acquire those skills, he encouraged the students to take advantage of the rich learning opportunities available at ToTAL, and to engage in dialogue with the various people the students will encounter. Akiyama then introduced each faculty member of ToTAL, and a registration certificate was presented to each student by Imura.

To conclude the ceremony, each student gave a self-introductory speech about their goals while at ToTAL, and photos were taken to commemorate the event.

Excerpts of self-introductory speeches by new ToTAL students
I wish to acquire the skills required to take the initiative to tackle various issues, and treasure communicating with the people I meet at ToTAL.
While at ToTAL, I want to find my own answer to the questions “What is leadership?” and “How can I play a role as a leader?”
Understanding other people is essential to be able to see things from different viewpoints. I would like to listen carefully to other people’s voices and try to truly understand others.
From my experience of doing group work, even if everyone in the team is brilliant, it does not necessarily lead to a good result unless the members understand each other. At ToTAL, I want to learn how to achieve good results in a team by considering each member’s personality and aptitude.
To create global impact and become a leader on a global level, I would like to reinforce my communication skills by learning from experienced faculty and people with various backgrounds who I meet at ToTAL.
I want to develop collaboration skills and comprehensively improve my overall skills at ToTAL. Eventually, I wish to become a person who can give something back to society.
At the orientation session held before the registration ceremony, faculty members explained the offerings of the ToTAL program, such as the study plan and the curriculum — recognition of social issues, global communication, leadership, followership and consensus building, off-campus project, and cultural skills — to the students. Tokyo Tech and ToTAL look forward to seeing the development and future activities of these students as they engage in friendly competition with their peers from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds.