Eighty-two first- and second-year students from the Clinical Engineering Technician Department (3-Year Program) at Tokyo College of Medico-Pharmaco Technology took part in a field trip from July 16 to 19 of this year at Kamogawa Seinen Youth Center, a training retreat center for young people located in Kamogawa City, Chiba Prefecture.

 

The retreat was the culmination of a team-based problem-solving program the students had been working on in classes since April designed to help them develop fundamental adult skills including initiative-taking skills, thinking skills, and team-work skills.

 

The first-year students conducted activities in the gymnasium, working together and talking with one another to complete tasks as they built team-working skills through different games. Using the teamwork skills they honed in the games they played in the gymnasium, they later developed fundamental skills for solving problems through activities such as learning how to cook outdoor. Working in teams, the first-year students prepared the Ultimate Curry, a delicious curry bursting with creativity, and served it to the second-year students.

 

The second-year students learned how to sail a cutter and reaffirmed the teamwork skills they developed during the training retreat the previous year. Undaunted by the heat, the students called out together as they sailed through the ocean surrounding Kamogawa. After the cutter sailing lesson, the second-year students set to work on preparing to teach the first-year students about studying. The students worked hard thinking about how to help the first-year students understand and how to explain things and well as making materials.

 

On the final day, the first- and second-year students looked back on the training retreat together. The participants were able to feel for themselves how they had grown over the course of the four-day program based on self-evaluations as well as the evaluations received from their teammates.