The Master’s Program in Infrastructure Engineering (MIE) is the program that attracts many young people for its good demand of labor force after graduation. Not only in developing countries like Vietnam, MIE’s students also have potentials to challenge themselves in Japanese companies. At VJU, MIE – developed on the basis of domestic need, followed the University of Tokyo training program aims to equip students with knowledge and advanced technology on design, construction, operation management and quality assurance of infrastructure projects. To better understand MIE and find out its competitive advantages after graduation, we had a short interview with Prof. Hironori Kato – Co-Director of MIE from Tokyo University.
From your viewpoint, what are advantages of MIE (lecturers, curriculum)?
First, many Japanese professors are involved in teaching program of MIE. The students can learn state-of-the-art topics with many Japanese examples. Second, there are many opportunities to acquire a knowledge of Japanese technologies even in Vietnam. As many Japanese firms are participating in the projects in Vietnam, the students can visit directly there to see and experience the real technologies through on-site field visits. Third, the curriculum of MIE follows that of the University of Tokyo, Japan, which is one of the top universities in Asia. The sophisticated teaching program provides the students with the latest and useful knowledge and skills for their studies and future carriers. Additionally, many alumni have worked or studied in Japan after their graduation. Excellent alumni have had chances to enter the PhD programs in some universities in Japan while many of other alumni have successfully hired by Japanese firms.
In your opinion, what are the differences of MIE in VJU in comparison to other programs of the same type in Viet Nam?
Our program requires not only course work but also quite heavy research work. The hard work could significantly differentiate MIE program from the other programs in Vietnam, which should enable the students to get comprehensive and sophisticated competency in civil engineering to be international engineers. It also contains the internship program in Japan, which gives valuable opportunities for students to stay in Japan for about three months to experience research activities at research units in Japanese universities and also to learn Japanese technology, culture, and nature.
How do you evaluate potentials of MIE students when working and further study in Japan?
MIE students have strong advantages when working and further study in Japan. As they have many opportunities of communications with Japanese professors and staffs, they are well aware of Japanese culture, which is often strongly required from Japanese firms. There are also many connections between MIE and Japan’s universities, which facilitates the MIE students to collect the information about the details of PhD programs in various universities together with scholarship programs. Actually, some students have already been studying at the Japanese universities as PhD students after their graduations.
