Graduation Ceremony for Graduate School of Engineering 2015

05 Oct 2015

President Takashi Onishi granted four students the Doctoral Degree of Engineering and ten international students the Master Degree of Engineering on September 24.

The congratulatory address from President is as follow:

The Congratulatory Address
Takashi ONISHI, President
Graduation Ceremony, Toyohashi University of Technology, September 24, 2015

I would like to congratulate all of you for the successful completion of your program at Toyohashi University of Technology.

I understand that you spent a lot of time and effort to accomplish your research for your program. This is the day when it is rewarded. But at the same time, we have to remember that the graduation is a new start for the next challenge.

It is often pointed out that the only technological innovation can have power to develop our society. Of course, the source of the technological innovation is scientific knowledge which you learnt here during your study. When we consider the power, all we understand there is another type of power, which is the military power. Sometimes forces are much stronger than knowledge superficially. But in reality, military power is used for destroying what we have been constructing. Therefore, it is not the power to create something, but destroying something.

Scientific knowledge, however, is useful to create the things which are beneficial to people' life and society as a whole. I think this is true power to move the society toward the enlightened future.

You learnt and absorbed a lot of knowledge in this university. Some were taught from your advisors or textbooks. They are important of course, because you learnt the systematic structure of the knowledge in your research field through these methods.

Moreover, the knowledge newly gained by your own research is valuable, because it is original and has a lot of possibility to create many new things which may be useful in the society.

Of course, you may think it is not enough to obtain such important knowledge by a research done for master's or doctoral theses. That is maybe true particularly in this scientifically well-developed modern society. But you learnt in this university how to conduct your scientific research. This is your true fortune. You may apply the methods which you have been learning in this university to whatever face you in the future. Whatever problems, whatever questions you have in the future, you can apply the scientific methodology you have learnt here for solving them.

Therefore, I would like to ask you to understand the degree honored to you today is not the goal of your carrier but its start.

Finally, I would like to extend also my congratulatory message to the family of the graduates. Without their support and encouragement, this graduation day would never come to you. Therefore today's celebration should be shared with the graduates and your families.

The last not the least, I would like to conclude my little speech expressing my thanks to advisors of the graduates.

Congratulations, once again. And thank you for your attention.