When pursuing a career as a university faculty member or researcher after completing a master’s or doctoral program, there are many cases where you cannot utilize your previous expertise. Although job openings for university faculty and research positions are posted, as many as 100 to 200 people apply for a single opening. You must win out over that competition—hundreds of times your number—to finally receive an offer. It is a very harsh world, and it is possible that the accumulation of your studies and research during your master’s and doctoral programs may not be applicable at your place of employment. I believe this is the same for corporate employment, but being able to find a job where you can utilize your expertise is a truly fortunate thing.

It was quite a while ago, but when I was talking to my mentor, Professor Akahori, he said, “(As long as you are aiming to be a university faculty member (including research positions at universities and research institutions),) it is common to do work that is different from your previous expertise.” Considering the current situation where it is difficult to obtain a research position at a university or similar institution, I think it is a fact that one must be prepared to seek employment in a field different from one’s own expertise when job hunting.

Even in the research content you have conducted so far, there are domain-dependent parts and parts that are not. I believe there is knowledge and technology that can be utilized in various fields. Whether you can understand that yourself is, I think, one key. That said, I think people who enter research positions have a desire to delve deeper and deeper into the area they are researching. However, even if you end up doing something different from your area of expertise as part of your duties, I do not think it means you cannot pursue your previous expertise as personal research. While I think there are difficult fields (for example, biology), I believe that research conducted as a duty and research conducted as a life’s work should not be considered separately.

Furthermore, Professor Akahori also said, “That will be a new challenge for you.” When you have to perform work in a field different from the research you have conducted so far, I think there are certainly parts where your motivation may drop. However, it is all a matter of perspective; taking on research or work that is different from your previous expertise is also a chance to broaden your knowledge and expertise, and I believe there are elements that can be applied to your own expertise (though whether you can find them depends on the individual).

Since Educational Technology is an interdisciplinary field, there are people with various areas of expertise, but since it has the title of “education,” you must know knowledge, theories, and peripheral theories related to education. I feel that there are some people who find that troublesome and conduct research without having knowledge of education or knowing the theories (while it is fine to study while doing research, there seem to be people who think there is no need to study). I wonder about that.

How do you acquire this way of thinking? It is difficult, but I acquired it during my time in the corporate world. Of course, a company is a hierarchical organization, so unless you quit the company, you must in principle follow the instructions and orders of your superiors. Being in such a structure, I also had the feeling that “it cannot be helped.” However, I had a desire to go to graduate school someday since I was a new employee (though I never thought I would end up quitting. Since it was written that you could go to graduate school without quitting, in my shallow imagination as an undergraduate student, I thought it was something you didn’t have to quit for), so I thought that even if it was something I didn’t want to do, or something different from my expertise, I could acquire something useful. I studied by reading books even on content I wasn’t very interested in (which is a matter of course). If you are a student, you can learn through tasks requested by your professors or by working on projects jointly with seniors, and I think your mindset will also change. A big difference emerges between students who do that and those who do not.

This is a world where there is a high possibility of taking a job where you cannot necessarily utilize your expertise. I believe that based on that possibility, making an effort, having a challenging spirit, studying new things, and continuing to research are strongly required.

# A certain professor said, “I think it’s a good thing that Educational Technology is thriving, but there are an increasing number of professors who misunderstand that they can get by without knowing or studying knowledge and theories related to education, and that is
# a really troublesome matter.” For example, they think that if they do e-learning, it becomes Educational Technology research.
# This is no good…
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