In mid-April, our alumnus, Mr. Feng, came to visit. It has been a while since he completed his studies. I am truly happy that an alumnus would go out of their way to come all the way to Fukuoka like this. Thank you.

Mr. Feng was a very excellent graduate student. I still remember when he first joined our lab, I asked him, “Why Yamada Lab?” While we do conduct research on educational game development, he replied, “Because I want to work at a game company.” I remember thinking, “Well, I don’t really have any connections with game development companies… (sweat),” but he worked very hard on his research and eventually landed a job at a company that does exactly what he dreamed of: game development.

Even as a master’s student, he achieved wonderful results, such as having a full paper accepted to ICCE in his first year, and also getting a paper published in the SSCI journal Educational Technology and Society, which was ranked 4th in the Google Scholar Matrix in Educational Technology at the time. We had a lively conversation about various stories from when he was a graduate student. He told me that he is now independent and working hard as a freelancer. He even gave me a presentation introducing his business (laughs).

It makes me truly happy to see our alumni thriving in companies and other fields like this. It serves as great encouragement for my research supervision. I can usually see the hard work of those who are also conducting research with me, such as Dr. Chen (Osaka Kyoiku University), Dr. Geng (Sojo University), and Dr. Eto (Seinan Jo Gakuin University), but it is harder to see the success of students who go into industry after graduation, so I am very happy when they come to visit like this.