The sixth class of Global Career Lecture Series was held at lunch time, which was the second TED-style talk. As well as in the earlier lectures, all 70 seats in the hall were full as soon as the bell rang.
The lecturer was Tatsuya Hayashi, who is a senior at Kwansei Gakuin University. He talked about his experiences taking part in the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) where he served in Samoa as an IT specialist.
At the beginning of the lecture, Mr. Hayashi was dressed in traditional Samoan clothes and he introduced himself in the Kansai dialect with a friendly smile. When he started speaking about his experiences while he was assigned there as “UN staff”, neither personally nor by a private organization(I cant understand this. Maybe just delete?), the attendees were immediately drawn into his story.
After he showed examples of the Samoan people’s character, their food and the climate, he talked about what motivated him to work there and the qualification test and interview he took to become a member of the UNV.
He also told interesting stories of Samoa such as how he had a hard time with communication in English; he was depressed because he couldn’t easily communicate with his peers. He felt that he could learn much more from them and decided to do so. After his superior suddenly took a month off, he was put in charge of his superior’s responsibilities. He got a sense of fulfillment when he went through with the work.
Mr. Hayashi lightly said, “even an ordinary student like me who has no confidence can achieve something if never gives up and continues working at it. That work can give you confidence.” These words had a bigger impact as they were spoken by someone who actually experienced those pressures.
During the question and answer session the students were keen to get involved. After the lecture ended, several students remained and listened to his other stories.
It was hearing the real experiences of a college student who is of the students’ own generation that laid the foundation for students to visualize their own future overseas activities.
In the hall there was an array of PCs to show the websites that Mr. Hayashi built while staying in Samoa, and all of the students were browsing them with great interest.
After the lecture Mr. Hayashi said with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m not very good at speaking in front of people, but I continue speaking to grow. I was worried about my first speech outside the university, and furthermore, it is to high school students. But I’m glad you earnestly listened to me, and I’ve had a good time. It helped improve my presentation skills, too!”
