Cultures of Care: Advising in Japan and Taiwan - Adventures in Advising

On this special global edition of Adventures in Advising, Dr. Margaret Mbindyo brings together Yoshinobu Onishi, Megumi Yamasaki, Jushan Cheng, and Chiahuan Chen for a rich, eye-opening conversation about how academic advising is taking shape in Japan and Taiwan. From helping students navigate major choice, family expectations, and mental health, to exploring the role of technology, study abroad, and holistic student support, this episode shines a light on the shared  advising around the world. Tune in for thoughtful insights, cross-cultural wisdom, and a powerful reminder that great advising can help students find clarity, confidence, and their path forward. 

Follow the podcast on your favorite podcast platform!

The Instagram, and Facebook handle for the podcast is @AdvisingPodcast

Also, subscribe to our Adventures in Advising YouTube Channel!

Connect with Matt and Ryan on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Matt Markin  
All right, welcome back to the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and I am so, so excited to have Dr. Margaret Mbindyo back on the podcast for what I like to call the Dr. Margaret Mbindyo series of bringing the global advising community together. Margaret, how have you been?

Margaret Mbindyo  
I have been so wonderful, Matt. I am so happy to be able to do this again, absolutely.

Matt Markin  
And it's so great to have you here. What is going to be the topic today?

Margaret Mbindyo  
So, the topic today we are talking to four colleagues, two from Japan and two from Taiwan, and they will be discussing and sharing with us advising as a profession in their countries, the culture and how it influences advising there, how advising as a profession is set up in their universities, and we cannot wait to hear from them.

Matt Markin  
That's my cue to jump off. I'm going to bring your guests on and have a wonderful conversation. Margaret, thanks again for doing this.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you, Matt. Welcome. I am so pleased to be able to facilitate this session with four wonderful colleagues from two countries, Japan and Taiwan, and I would like to introduce myself again. My name is Margaret Mbyndyo. I am a faculty member at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, where I serve as an adviser to students that do not have a major or exploratory students. And I also teach freshmen seminars, and it is such a privilege for us to be able to share with our colleagues abroad in Japan and in Taiwan. And without further ado, I would like to call upon them to introduce themselves. We are going to start with our colleagues from Japan, Yoshi and Megumi. Yoshi, can you please introduce yourself?

Yoshinobu Onishi  
My pleasure. Thank you. My name is Yoshinobu Onishi. I'm professor at Chiba University in Japan. I studied in Japan and also in the United States and then Thailand, so three different countries. So I know a bit about American universities, and I'm interested in academic advising in general, but my topic or expertise is very small and narrow, which is about study abroad advising. Thank you very much.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Wonderful Megumi. Can you please go ahead and introduce yourself?

Megumi Yamasaki  
Thank you very much. Hello. My name is Megumi Yamasaki. I'm at the Soca university in Japan. I studied for bachelor's degree Japan and also masters and PhD in the US. I worked until 2010 in United States higher education, and since then, I came back to Japan. I work for Japanese university. I'm not advisor, but I work with a lot of students as a learning center a person and also Disability Services. Thank you very much.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Awesome. Thank you, and now we are going to hear from Jushan from Taiwan.

Jushan Cheng  
Thank you, Margaret and hello everyone. I am Jushan. I have been serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the academic advising office at the National Taiwan University for five years, in addition of the role at the university, I said, as the Executive Secretary of the Taiwan academic advising Development Committee, where I share our experience with other institutions Across Taiwan, they are starting to develop their own Academic Advising Service. Since we are the first academic advising office in Taiwan and today, Xiao and I are so grateful to share our experience to all the global partners. Thank you for this great opportunity.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thanks, awesome. Thank you. Jiang, can you please go ahead and introduce yourself?

Chia-Huan  
Okay, hello, everyone. My name is Chia-Huan, and I'm an academic advisor in National Taiwan University, and my background in psychology. Of counseling, and I I also got my master's degree in the US, and I used to be a psychological counselor and also special special education teacher for more than 10 years, and just four years ago, I joined office being an advisor. Since then, thanks for this opportunity to be here.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much again for your introductions. And I am going to start with my first question, question that I always like to ask, and it is, how is the role of academic advising defined and perceived in your country. Let's start with Taiwan.

Jushan Cheng  
Okay, thanks for the first question about the role we are doing. We are doing active advising at Taiwan. In Taiwan, I think our most of our students, maybe near 90% our high school students, they enter the university directly after the they graduated from high school. So normally, our student to office to our university is about 80 years old, so they are really young. And why are they entered the university? They maybe they don't have such questions to to aware what they really need and what they really like, because they are have already select a major while they enter the university. So while we started to launch this new office, we decided to have our students to have more opportunity to have the self awareness. That's what I we are doing. And also we want to introduce more resources they suit for so that's what we are doing in Taiwan. And nowadays, more and more Taiwan University in Taiwan, they started for this kind of service for students, because there are more interdisciplinary degree program in Taiwan are set up. So we thought academic advising is a really good program for students to self awareness and design their learning paths. That's what we are doing in Taiwan. Awesome.

Margaret Mbindyo  
So advising is relatively new in Taiwan, so to speak, I remember Jewish meeting you in Florida during an akada conference, and we sat on the same table in the morning, not knowing each other, and we started to talk. And that's when you revealed that advising is relatively new in Taiwan, but you are putting all the effort you can to make it real for your students. I am very happy that that is happening, and thank you so much again for that perspective, that sharing. Chia-Huan, do you want to add to what Jushan has said?

Chia-Huan  
Yeah, I think she pretty much covered what we were doing right now. And Jushan said that, I think because we have this entrance exam to university, so our students from junior high school to Senior High School, the most critical six years, they spend much of their time, the majority of their time mastering the exam subjects. Usually it's three to eight subjects. That's quite a lot. So they sacrifices their time to explore their future. So a lot of times, they just came to the they just start exploring their future right after they enter university. So that's where the academic advising comes in at that time. So we do a lot of exploration with our students. So that's my role, yeah, in Taiwan. Awesome.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you very much. Megumi?

Megumi Yamasaki  
Okay in Japan at the higher education, technically speaking, as a advisor, system implemented 2012 but recently, I think Minister of administrative education is putting more effort to actually practicing or actually functioning advising role at the higher education just like a Taiwan most majority of the students entering higher education has a major decided. It's really rare that. To have undecided. I'm not sure about the National University Yoshi is at, but for the majority of private university has a major already decided, and very rare for liberal arts type of majors. So for Japanese University Advising, role oftentimes tied to learning kind of academic skills and also supporting student life, which is probably close to us, academic advising kind of definition. However, it's rare to have a professional advisor at the Japanese higher education so majority of them are faculty in the department play the advising role.

Margaret Mbindyo  
That is really interesting, so the students do not. They don't have a choice. They are decided for them?

Megumi Yamasaki  
Well, not decided for them. When they put the application form to the high to enter higher education, they decided, technically speaking, they do decide a major.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Okay, yes, that is really interesting. Yoshi, would you like to add to what Megumi has said?

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Well, if I talk about my university, which is Chiba University, it's very special because it has a lot of academic advisors. It's so it's very advanced. And I think Professor Yamazaki Soka University is also very advanced too in Japan. So, but they are very special cases in general. Advising in Japan has historically been a informal responsibility of for Japanese Well, faculty members just like me. So it's not clearly stated, but it's obviously my, one of my jobs. It's funny, but it's real. It's often tied to Zemi, which means seminar in English. Zemi is German pronunciation, unlike the professionalized western model, where dedicated advisors handle degree planning, career planning and everything, Japan is currently in a hybrid transition. Recent policies from the Ministry of Education now define academic advising as a core component of learning support, however many students and even faculty still perceive it as either administrative paperwork or occasional crisis management, rather than the continuous developmental process. While Western models emphasizes student autonomy and navigating a flexible curriculum, the Japanese perception is still leaning toward guidance and ensuring students fulfill a relatively rigid set of requirements within their specific departments or faculties.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you very much. One thing that comes out of this question is the fact that, unlike the US, where the Careers Services or office is a distinct office, and advising has a distinct office, it seems like in Japan and Taiwan, everything is combined together. Is that correct?

Chia-Huan  
I think in Taiwan just I think National Taiwan University was the first university in Taiwan to establish a specific office for academic advising, and since then, I think our function just separate from counseling center or career center. So now we are specifically serve students to explore their future or also to match the learning resources within the campus. So I think NTU is the first one in Taiwan, and as rusan said, more and more universities in Taiwan started to establish a academic advising office here in Taiwan. Yeah, so I think now we have a specific, specific function, yeah, other than other Yeah, supporting services.

Margaret Mbindyo  
That's wonderful. So because then you are a model to the other universities as they strive to begin possibly they are advising units in their universities.

Chia-Huan  
Yes, and we learn a lot, especially rusan. She participated in NACADA for several years. So we learned a lot from the US universities.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Awesome, very good Megumi.

Megumi Yamasaki  
No, I think Professor Onishi said it, yeah, Japanese are kind of still many, many services together.

Margaret Mbindyo  
it's yes, it's kind of a work in progress. Okay, yes, wonderful. Thank you so much for your responses. Let's move on to the second question. So talking about culture, because culture is always very fascinating. I respect people's culture, and I'm actually very interested in learning about how people live, how people perceive things, and I know that your countries are rich in culture. And so my question to you is, what cultural values, respect for authority, respect for adults, family expectations. What cultural values, most of the times, can be said to shape how students engage with faculty and advisers.

Chia-Huan  
Okay, then I'll go first. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, the the situations in Taiwan, from my perspective, perspective, I think the most significant factors influencing students career choices in Taiwan include social atmosphere that over emphasizes academic credentials and also high parental expectations, and also the university entrance examination system I just mentioned before, and in Taiwan society, there's a deep seated reverence for academic degrees, so parents hold very, really high hopes for their children to study hard, to get into prestigious universities and choose promising majors. So consequently, the students, they put a lot a lot of time spend a lot of time in their six year high schools years to to master their exam subjects, so they it over, so they doesn't have enough time to explore their future or even to know better about themselves. So even to get into a good university is a goal, but it's a I will say it's a midterm goal, not a long term goal. So it often comes at the cost of career exploration. So in many cases, the direction students choose for their departments always usually aligns with mainstream values and or parental wishes rather than their own interests or intentions. So they just didn't have enough time to explore so as a result, many students discover a disconnect between their department and their personal values only after they entered entered college. That's just what Rosella said, that when they entered the university, they already chose, they've already chose a major, but that doesn't necessarily related to what they really are or what they are really interested in, so that's the main issue.

Margaret Mbindyo  
So do they have an opportunity during their time in college to change their major?

Chia-Huan  
I think seven 70% of the students who come to academic advising office they have they really want to explore this issue and what really want to find the way to kind of change major, or at least choose a double major or minor or even specific specialization program. So those are different methods for them to to have cross interdisciplinary training, or even change their their field of study. So yeah, they still have the methods to the channels to change their area.

Margaret Mbindyo  
That's really interesting. Jushan, and would you like to add?

Jushan Cheng  
Add, as someone said, I'm so glad because because of academic advising, service has already set up, and most of our students come to have a meeting with the academic advisor. After that, they feel the more energy to achieve their goal. So I'm so happy we can provide this kind of service for our students, because they are so smart, they have start so much energy. But sometimes they will confuse about their future, but where they decided the goal they have so much power to achieve that. I want to share echoes. Thank you.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you very much. And before I jump on to Megumi and Yoshi, advising is so important because many of these students that are coming to our universities as freshmen have no idea about some of the majors they think they know. And so when an academic advisor sits down with them, even a faculty advisor sits down with a new student and explains what this major really means, or what this career means, then the student is able to really understand and capture what the major or the career pathway is all about. And so it's just such a critical role advising, whether professional advising, or whether faculty advising, talking to the student and really explaining what this major or what is career is all about in the US here, of course, many of you have an idea as an as a faculty advisor, my students that have no idea what they want to take, I usually, sometimes give them assessments. We have in our university, the focus to the focus to assessment is an assessment that helps students to identify their own personal strengths in the process of taking this you know, assessment, a student is able to really know where their strength is in as far as the different fields or the different majors are concerned. So again, very, very important, please go ahead, Yoshi.

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Well, I do the same thing actually for a study abroad advising. I use BEVI, you know, BEVI, beliefs, beliefs, events and values in inventory. It's founded in the United States, and it's about 20 years or 30 years. It's a online testing tool to, you know, for the students and they take the test, it consists of 185 questions, and it has also 17 indexes, like global resonance or environmental resonance, or leadership or something like that. So the it shows the students current situation and then their strength and weakness, then I can give them advice that's a very useful technology and tools.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Absolutely and so many universities use different assessments, but assessments are so crucial, actually in helping students to identify different measures and how you know what what they are and how they can affect them, and then help them also to choose the right major for them based on their strengths. Megumi go ahead.

Megumi Yamasaki  
For Japanese students. Unlike Taiwan, they rarely change their majors. They might add minor or double major, but they really change majors. I believe that's one of the cultural thing, because parents or themselves expect to graduate in four years. For the most part, if they do study abroad, maybe five. But many students try, try to graduate in four years. That's it seems to be expectation, and it's very difficult to change the major, to change the department, even so, I assume that is a kind of cultural value influencing students. I. Decision. So from the academic advising perspective, we have to help them to kind of come to, kind of their mindset to complete their majors, because it might be different from what they wanted to do, but they decide to stay in the faculty and the majors. So as advisors, we ask them what they want to do right now and also for the future, and let them kind of find a connection between their current faculty, especially required courses, and also how they can make out of it to connect to their career and also current wishes and hopes. 

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you very much. We'll come back to that, because I'm really interested in knowing certain things about what you do in as far as that question is concerned. But i You've touched on this. I would like to talk a little bit about the challenges that students face, academic and personal. Because, you know, students, irrespective of where they are, whether they are in the US, whether they are in the UK, in Taiwan, Japan, there will be those personal challenges that are unique to that particular students and in you know, they could be related, depending on what advisers See, mostly in the US here, when I'm advising students, one thing that has come up in the last few years is the issue of mental health. It seems like it's, it's, it's, it's really rapid. I mean, a lot of students are struggling with mental health issues. So I'm interested in in knowing what are some of the common challenges that you see in your advising or your offices as you deal with students, whether they are personal or academic. Let's start with Japan Megumi. Let's go, okay.

Megumi Yamasaki  
From personal perspective, it's similar to what you just said. Mental issues is a huge I believe in which is affecting both personal and academic. Because, you know, they're student so you know both of them influences each other as an advisor, they work with, like a counseling offices, and also I now with a disability services. So the faculty advisor contacts us, and as a team, we try to support student but the previous question, the cultural values, okay, that also influences the mental issues and also academic expectation. How to balance personal and academic and with the mental health? Because, as from Academic Advising point of view, I don't believe they should take a full load, because they they are in the circumstances, maybe less kind of they need less credits load, but because they want to graduate in four years, or family expectation to graduate in four years, they try to put full load, which puts them in a not good situation, academically and also personal.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Absolutely, absolutely go ahead.

Jushan Cheng  
Yes, I think the mental health is still a challenge for Taiwan students, because while we launched this new office before these our universities students face lots of mental health difficulties. So that's why our university set up many new office to support students mental health. So I think in our university, we are co operate with other institutions to for supporting our students. That's what we do. And in academic advisory office, we focus on the academic affairs. That's what we are doing in Taiwan. And I think John one has more experience about the students challenges, so maybe John can add some more difficult about Taiwan students.

Chia-Huan  
Well, I think mental health issue is definitely I think it's getting more and more cases here, but I think I will say that a sense of uncertainty is the most fear that the students right now they are facing. So networking is really important, just as nakomi said, and also so we co work, collaborate with other support services such as counseling center, special education services and also Career Center. So I will use an ecological system perspective, to support a student, for example, from our office, we will support them to explore their future and also to match suitable resources with them. And if the student has mental health issues, then we'll refer the student to counsel center or student well being center, and if the student needs more training to prepare for their career, they will transfer them to Career Center, maybe to practice how to write their resume or to practice interview things like that. So all the different services work together. We collaborate with each other and to help the student to establish safe network for a student.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, awesome. So a follow up question that I would like to ask is and thank you again for speaking about mental health, because it seems like it's really a challenge for a lot of students that really affects the academic success. Yeah. So may I go ahead. Yoshi.

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Well, this actually happened to me. One day, student came to me. The student was with the mental problem, and he said he wanted to study abroad, but the university wouldn't allow him to do so that's formality, that's the regulation. And I thought it was okay, but I also listened to him very carefully, and I found out that he was very eager to study abroad, so I would like to support him. And I asked him, Do you have friends who can support you in your studying abroad program? And he said, Yes. So I met his friends, and I found out that they the friends, they were very eager to support him. So I was very glad, and I gave him a clean right, yeah, he was very glad, and he was okay.

Margaret Mbindyo  
That's wonderful. So my follow up question is, how do cultural attitudes towards counseling or help seeking affect the conversations like you know, some students can see going to the Counseling Center is a stigma. Do you see that kind of thing?

Chia-Huan  
I think that's also a little bit cultural thing, that it's really kind of a stigma. But I think right now, we are kind of educating students to try to take off that kind of stigma, and also because we have more and more functional segments and units like for us, if they if a student come to our office even with mental health issues, but when they talk to us, we provide them with specific, actionable plans to them, so they will feel hopeful and because, and also because they talk to us first, and we can make a referral to counseling center so it, I think all the student Support Units, if we can just make a good rapport with students, establish good relationship, I think we always have a way to refer them to the right unit and work together.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Does anyone want to add on to that? Yeah, okay, yes. Go ahead. Megumi, okay.

Megumi Yamasaki  
I think two people said, probably if we can connect, if we can build a relationship, a trusted relationship, with the students, and work with a different unit, like Professor onishis case, I think that's the good example. Uh, like students might have a mental health issues, but if we can work with a different units to make sure we can support, then they can succeed. And when students can experience with the support, like a mental health health center, academic advisors, they may be able to go to study abroad when they thought, if they kind of reveal the fact that they have a mental health issues, they may told that they cannot go. However, if we work together, the students can go to the Study Abroad, which is a good positive experience. So through those positive experience, I hope students get over stigma and also family.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Absolutely, absolutely. And one thing that I would like to say actually, is when you are advising, practice is holistic, students will tell you things, but advising being relational and holistic is extremely important. When it's transactional, students will not tell you anything, and so you are dealing with a student who really has issues, issues that you can help solve, but you are not able to, because the way you relate to the student is that kind of a relationship that tells the student that I do not want to talk to you for a long time. I don't want to hear anything. I'm already I already have my own issues, so why should I listen to your own issues? That kind of that kind of relationship, is going to drive students away from you, and you are not being helpful as an academic advisor, as a faculty advisor, because the way you relate to those students tells them something, and they are not willing to share deeply. And so we need to be very, very holistic in our approach, our advising approach, so that we can, you know, get to know the students, and we can find ways of supporting that student. Anyone wants to add to this? 

Jushan Cheng  
I want to share one information, because in our university, we only have five academic advisor, but we serve 17,000 undergraduate students, but we have best third degree and PhD as well. So it's a huge number of students, but, but we try our best to help students. But most impressed me, it's about the student, where they have a commit, have a meeting with academic advisor, they will introduce their friends where they face learning issues, they will recommend their friends to use the Academic Advising Service. So it's so touched because they fail academic advising is really useful and helpful, and they feel be supported, so they want to recommend our service to other students. So that's why other is university across Taiwan, they want to provide this kind of service other even they only have one or two academic advisor at the beginning. But I think the faculty or the peers they they want to help people. So I'm so glad. I think the academic advising chain in Taiwan will be more developed.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, in awesome now that you say that you, I mean, I'm really curious. Do advise us? The five of you, are you assigned to a list of students? Do you have a caseload of students that you advise?

Jushan Cheng  
Our students, they make appointment by themselves. We didn't for we don't force them to to doing academic advising, meeting with academic advisor, so if they want to change themselves, or they want to know more inform, no more information about resources, they will make appointment on the internet and make appointment with our academic advisor.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I understand, but do you have a list of your own advisees?

Jushan Cheng  
I just have a few experience about make an appointment with students, but I we get, we can I gather the feedback from my academic advisor team to to check the students.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Chia-Huan, do you have a list of students that you typically advise? Maybe 100 200 students that only come to you?

Chia-Huan  
Oh, well, we have advising appointment system, and you can make an appointment on the system, but the students don't, cannot assign the advisors, so they'll just come to talk with so anyone, any five of us, will have the chance to talk with the students, so they we don't have a kind of our own advisees. No, we don't. 

Margaret Mbindyo  
So, you are open to meeting with any student?

Chia-Huan  
Yes, yes. So yeah, if the first time, for instance, a student meet with with me, and he or she feels comfortable to talk to me again, and when they make an appointment, they can just put some remarks and saying that I want to talk to Japan next time, then we'll just change the advices with my colleagues.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I see

Chia-Huan  
other than that, we are just open to everybody.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, very good. Thank you. Is that the case with Japan?

Megumi Yamasaki  
I mean a faculty advisor. So at my institution, if you're a faculty advisor, they do have a certain number of students they are responsible for. Okay, yeah. And for me, I'm not faculty advisor, so I advise anyone who comes to me.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Okay, yes, I see Yeah. Yoshi, is that the case with you? 

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Yes, same thing. 

Margaret Mbindyo  
Very good. Alright. We are going to switch gears here, and I want us to talk a little bit about technology, because Taiwan and Japan, you have way ahead when it comes to technology. Can you talk to us a little bit about how that as influenced advising or even students in pursuit of the academics, because in my syllabus, I have a policy no phones here in the US. So with you being so advanced in technology. How do you deal with this issue, and do you also have possibly some technology that can be used for advising students?

Chia-Huan  
Well, in terms of technology, actually, we focus is on building an academic advising appointment system I just mentioned. And there are several functions of this platform. And first is appointment scheduling, that's for students to make appointments so anytime, 24 hours a day, and the second will be session documentation, so the students, they have to write down their concerns in the system. And after the session, advisors have to record the progress notes, so all the data will be saved. And also, we also have pre and post session impact assessments. So that's why, how we can measure students progress and effective, effectiveness of the advising actually, we developed a question to there that evaluates two dimensions of the students, one is the level of certainty regarding their future studies, and also the level of ability to utilize learning resources. So by analyzing the shift in these metrics before and after the sessions, we can objective, objectively quantify our impact and also identify specific areas for improvements. So that's the third functions, and the last one will be automated consultation matching, because, other than academic advisors, we also have peer consultants tent and also professional consultant so the system will connect students with specialized consultants based on their needs. So the system will help us solve those administrative work.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Okay, yeah, so, and anyone of you can respond to this, is phone, the use of phone an issue in class?

Chia-Huan  
Oh, new cell phone.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Is it? Is it a problem?

Chia-Huan  
Well, it's, it's an adult's decision to use the phone or not. I think the professor won't really control them or not. You have to be responsible for your your own behavior. I don't think I have any cases with phone issues to come to our advising sessions. I haven't encountered any.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I see Megumi. Would you like to make to talk a little bit about that, about phone technology in Japan technology?

Megumi Yamasaki  
Well, my university, we do use a lot of like a portal means like a kind of portal site which allow us to communicate through the system. So we use for the communication, also probably similar to what in Taiwan's practice when we meet with the students, we make sure we put the record in the system, so the next time students meet with someone else, the other person will understand what the situation is for the students. So we use technology in that way. We also have a peer advisors, so we ask them to make sure that they record, but I know we make clear the role differences between peer advisor and also us adults advisor.

Margaret Mbindyo  
yeah, I see. Thank you. Yoshi?

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Yoshi, well, in Japan recently, ChatGPT is very, very common and popular among students. They call it chapi. It's like a friends. And they don't ask anything to me, but they ask something, many things to chat GPT, and I talked about BEVI just Yeah, and BEVI is just recently connected with ChatGPT. So when they when the students look at the result of BEVI's testing score, they assume login, ChatGPT, and they ask anything. So, yeah, for example, what is the best job for me?

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, so they're not using it for plagiarism. They're not using it for plagiarizing answers. You know?

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Well, I think they do, but it's very difficult to say that you are, you are stealing something, but I don't.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I understand. I think AI generally, whether it's ChatGPT or any other is a big problem. Actually, it's a global problem in the education arena. Yeah, yeah. So we are almost ending our conversation. I would like to ask switch gears a little bit, and this question is focusing on studying abroad, because we have a lot of students from the US that come to the to Japan. We also have a lot of students that go to Taiwan. And so I'm wondering about the Taiwan Japanese students studying abroad, and how you help them navigate both opportunity and their hesitation, because some of them are not sure whether they want to go to the US or to Britain or Kenya or wherever. How do you help them in as far as navigating the Study Abroad issue, Yoshi, we can start with you, because you are dealing with this study abroad issue.

Yoshinobu Onishi  
Well, yeah, in Japan, we have currently many tourists from abroad because the because of the depreciation of yen. So it's your advantage, not worse. So I recommend many American friends and friends abroad to come to Japan.

Margaret Mbindyo  
So how is their preparation? Are them? Are some of the students not able to come to the US or travel to another country because of financial issues?

Yoshinobu Onishi  
The financial constraint is big problem for us because it is almost three times or four times. I mean, the prices on foods and transformation, traffic and everything so. So it's it's not the right time for the students to go abroad, but institutionally, especially my university, Chiba University, is trying to increase the number of students who study abroad, so it's a big problem.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I I'm asking this because we all know that, ah, studying abroad is really eye opening, and it gives students a new perspective when they go back to their countries. Megumi, you can agree with me. Jackson, you can usually you can agree with me about that, Jawan, the same, Yoshi, the same. Many of us that have, you know, gone to school in a different continent. You know, our perspectives are different. The US students that go to Kenya or go to South Africa or Italy, when they come back, they are totally different in the way they think, and so studying abroad is such a crucial element of a student's academic life. In fact, study abroad is a high impact practice. Is one of the high impact practices. So I don't know whether anyone of you want to add on to that.

Chia-Huan  
Well, if a students who want want to have to add some more international experiences, and usually finance will be a main issue, but if, because it's always costly to study abroad, but of course, a seeking degree is really expensive, but if the finance, finance cannot really support them, maybe participating in exchange program in campus, there will be an alternatives or or maybe finding some international internship opportunities, that's also a very good way to gain more international experiences. So for those who want to have overseas experiences, but can have, cannot have the financial support, and we'll just try our best to find some alternative ways for them. And like NTU, we have a lot of we have several overseas internship programs and also exchange programs. So we always suggest students to take to use that channel to add their experiences.

Margaret Mbindyo  
We are almost rounding up our podcast. I would like to ask one question, and this question is, if you could offer one advice to academic advisors around the world based on your experience, what would that advice be? Megumi, let's start with you.

Megumi Yamasaki  
I would say, create a network among advisors and work together to support students, because experience alone could be very limited, but if we what we if we can work together collectively, I think we can have a lots of different ideas and explore options to support one student.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, very, very nice advice. Jushan?

Jushan Cheng  
I will say, the illuminating. We often use the symbol of light to describe our service. So during our advising sessions, we can see the lights in students eyes, while truly inspired. So so no doubt what we do is to light up students learning paths. That's one to encourage all academic advisor we what we do are really variable.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, so we are the light. We are the light of the students. Without us as advisors, students are in total darkness.

Jushan Cheng  
We hope we can do our best to support our students.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Chia-Huan?

Chia-Huan  
Well, I will say that try to be a person with whom students feel safe and comfortable sharing their stories. I will see advisors role as working alongside them. Yeah, to support them. Yeah, absolutely encouraging.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Again, that holistic advising, the relational advising, that is going to allow students to feel comfortable enough to share their issues. Issues with you so that you can be helpful to them in a better manner. Yoshi.

Yoshinobu Onishi  
I think the key word is arts and science, because on one hand, academic advising is one of the skills we have to brush it up and but on the other hand, that's an art, right? But on the other hand, we need to say that what is a good advising, what is bad advising, and we need some evidence, and we need some research. That's a science part. So I would like to encourage more faculty members to do more research, and we have to accumulate clear evidence to support, what is good advising, what is bad evidence? What is bad advising? 

Margaret Mbindyo  
Very good advising. Since this is a profession, especially, you know, in in the all of them, I mean, it's a global profession, really, so to speak, and that's why we are doing this series. How about if we do some research as professional advisors, as faculty advisors, to determine what we are doing well and what we are not doing good at, and how can we improve the profession or the practice of academic advising? Well, we are over by two minutes. And I would like to say thank you so much. This was such a fruitful, meaningful discussion about advising in Taiwan and in Japan, and we all thank the advising adventures podcast. Forgive us for giving us this wonderful opportunity to be able to share with our global partners, global advising community, about this very important work that is being done in Japan and in Taiwan. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to talk with you.