The annual URSP (Undergraduate Research Student Program) camp was held in Chiba prefecture for three days from October 7th-9th, 2017. Research students gave presentations in groups.

This year, 43 research students, including those who didn’t participate in any presentations, attended the camp, and Associate Professor Niwa also joined us. Nine groups, with themes such as design, cartoons, and reports, gave their presentations and showed the result of their research from the summer. Each group had one hour for their presentation, which proved insufficient for many of them because of the depth of their presentations. During and after the presentations, students shared their comments and opinions on Slack, which is an SNS medium.

The camp also strives to form friendships among the participants. They discussed various topics (for example, their home university/company) during the parties at night. It was nice to have such an opportunity because there is little chance to communicate with each other in regular classes. I hope the relationships that were made in this camp will help promote future class discussions and individual research in URSP.

This annual camp is an important event for URSP, whose students are from diverse backgrounds, to deepen their friendships. There were enthusiastic discussions during the daytime research presentations, and the conversation continued during the parties at night. The students were as energetic as they were when I participated in the camp three years ago. I could see it had been well-prepared by the camp coordinators.