NC: The idea behind OIST was to create the best university in the world. We had to be international, but we also had to be multidisciplinary. Our students have a very narrow specialty, but during the doctoral program they also have to experience other branches of science. So, if they are doing a physics specialty, we make sure they do a rotation in different laboratories, which will have to be something like chemistry, or biology, or neuroscience, or mathematics so they understand the vocabulary and the experimental approaches of other sciences. There was a general feeling that the old model of graduate school education no longer suits what we are looking for in young people going out into the world. They should be much more aware of a wide range of possibilities.

KN: We do many kinds of things, one of which is science writing. We use the website to promote our research to the rest of the world, so those who read our stories contact us and say, “I want to collaborate with your researcher.”

NC: What we do is write what we hope are really interesting journalistic stories about the research we are doing here and publish one to three articles a week, which we send out to the world through various distribution methods.

We try to come up with good press stories and effective headlines. We do stories about new research, conferences, welcoming new faculty, whatever. For a less formal approach, we put up more community news.

KN: Other interns have either science communications or journalism degrees. Their pace is faster in summarizing scientific research. But when it comes to comprehension, Sean equals or even exceeds our expectations. I’m always very impressed by the fact that he takes a highly academic research paper that has been accepted to a journal and understands, I would say, more than half of the content and walks into an interview with the researcher. My approach and most other interns’ approach is to get just a vague idea of the research and then throw out a lot of questions in the interview. Neither approach is right or wrong, but that is something that perhaps students with non-science backgrounds can learn from him.

NC: Sean is a very bright guy. He has to go off and cover something like the genetic arrangement of starfish clusters, which I know nothing about, and I have to edit the stories he writes and he sits down and explains the science to me. I have been very impressed by his ability to pick up complex concepts very quickly and really understand them. Some people are just not able to do that. They don’t have the self-confidence to believe they really understand and they get scared and a little jittery about it all. But he has a lot of composure and self-belief. He’s taught me a lot of science since he’s been here and he’s not a scientist. I’ve been very impressed on that level.

KN: One student from the University of Toronto is at Imperial College in London pursuing a master’s degree in science journalism. Another American student is in Utrecht University in the Netherlands pursing a degree in philosophy of science.

Another one joined Johns Hopkins communications team, so she’s in science communications. The first international intern returned home and is doing communications in Nairobi, Kenya. Another intern, whose strength is in video production, is in Fiji now. When she interned here she produced a couple videos and she is currently a freelancer pursuing marine science, producing videos. Two years ago she won a prestigious science video award in America.

As for Japanese interns, one is in Tokyo and got a job at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan doing communications targeting an international audience. The other has joined the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) in Odaiba.

NC: We’re very pleased about the two Japanese interns who got the jobs they wanted mainly because of their experiences here.

KN: Both of them said that they were able to answer the interview questions based on their experiences at OIST. The employers must have felt like they knew what they were getting into and were confident they would excel.

NC: Yes, it’s a real metric of how good these internships are. Something I take very seriously is getting these interns good jobs when they leave here. We spend a lot of time writing references. We can help them get jobs because we have a good international network.

KN: Writing skills, personality, team spirit. I think these are the major points.

NC: We want writers. The ideal candidate for this job is someone who has had some journalism training. We want people who enjoy writing and are curious about and not scared by science. But, as Natori-san says, for me, in the end, I’m looking for nice people who are fun to be with, who work well in a team, who enjoy life, who want to come to work. Internships only work if there is a good atmosphere. You’ve got to have people who will join in and have fun.

KN: The access to our cars allows them to go around the island on weekends. OIST has a resource center with bilingual staff to provide information about festivities or places to go. We are also a very close community, so I hope they won’t shy away from asking questions about what they would like to see. There are different degrees of interaction with the Okinawan people, but the survival Japanese course must have already loosened their nervousness when it comes to interacting.