As a boy who grew up in the City of Hills and Ports, Chittagong, Bangladesh, I felt a strange sense of familiarity when I first heard of Hyogo. Here was another land where mountains meet the sea, with the port city of Kobe and peaks rising beyond it. Maybe that is why this opportunity feels less like traveling to a distant place and more like answering a call from somewhere that already resembles home.
To me, studying abroad is not simply about changing locations. It is about changing perspectives. As a graduate researcher, I have spent the past few years working in medical image analysis and AI-driven diagnosis, and this journey has taught me that meaningful research rarely grows in isolation. It grows through collaboration, through exposure to new methods and mentors, and through the humility of learning in unfamiliar environments. The HUMAP program at the University of Hyogo offers exactly this. I will have the chance to work at the Advanced Medical Engineering Research Institute, where research takes place at the intersection of engineering and real clinical practice.
My purpose in this exchange is clear. I aspire to become a research-oriented academic focusing on medical vision and AI in medicine. I want to be someone who not only publishes research but also builds bridges between institutions, mentors the next generation of researchers, and helps turn algorithms into tools that genuinely assist doctors and patients. A year of immersive research in Japan will sharpen my technical depth, expose me to the standards and discipline of Japanese academia, and strengthen the growing research partnership between my home university and the University of Hyogo. It is a collaboration I hope to carry forward for many years, long after my own exchange ends.
I will admit there is uncertainty in me too. This will be my first ever international travel. I have journeyed across the hills, rivers, and coastlines of Bangladesh, but I have never crossed its borders. A conference in Shimane once nearly brought me to Japan, but I only got to present online. It was a summit glimpsed but not reached. This fellowship is my second chance, and my first time flying to the Land of the Rising Sun. The nervousness of stepping into the unknown is real, but so is the excitement, because Japan is not unknown to my heart. I have admired its culture since childhood, from the nostalgic warmth of 90s city pop to the quiet calmness of its forests, and the generations of shounen heroes who taught me that perseverance itself is a kind of talent. Beyond the books and screen, now I want to get accustomed to the language, customs, cuisine, and to walk through the layers of history that live in places like Himeji Castle. To finally stand in the country that shaped so much of my imagination, and to understand it more deeply than any book could teach me, will be in itself a dream fulfilled.
There is a more personal side to this journey as well. Growing up among the hills and waterfalls of Chittagong, hiking and trekking became my way of thinking. Every ascent teaches what research does: that progress comes one deliberate step at a time, and the view is earned. So when I learned that Mount Shosha rises just outside Himeji, crowned by the ancient Engyo-ji temple, I knew my weekends in Hyogo would not be idle.
And then there is Fuji-san. As a teen, my dream was not to just see Mount Fuji but to climb it. Standing at its summit has only lived in my imagination. Can I climb it during my time in Japan? Only time will tell.
There is a famous proverb:
"A wise man climbs Mount Fuji once; only a fool climbs it twice."
I have come to see my own journey in its light. Some opportunities arrive once, at the right moment, and ask to be climbed fully, deliberately, and with everything one has. The HUMAP fellowship is my Fuji, a once-in-a-lifetime ascent that stands between where I am and who I hope to become. I intend to climb it wisely, step by step, with respect for the path, with gratitude for those who guided me to its base, and with my eyes fixed on the summit.