Importance of inviting guest speakers at educational institutions

Upload: 23 September 2019, Last update: 26 September 2019

I am not actually not sure whether I can say this to most of educational institutions in Japan (and other countries), but I do think that universities (and elementary, junior high, and high schools) in Japan should more invite guest speakers.

Since I do watch a lot of videos of academics on the web and visit open lectures of academics, I found that those opportunities inspire or help to discover new and inspiring perspectives.

Even if we take a series of classes from a professor for 10 or 20 hours, in some cases it cannot beat an experience of listening to just a 2-hour lecture of a guest speaker. Even it can be the life changing event for students. It can trigger the potential of students and motivate them for a long time (or even lifelong).

In addition, those lectures can be posted on the Internet, for example YouTube. It can be beneficial to not merely audiences attending, but also to a society. In some cases, it would play a role of enhancing publicity of institutions.

Universities like Harvard, MIT and others allow people like me to watch higher level of intelligence. That always motivates and gives chances to reach new findings.

The following added on 28 March 2020

Other than top universities, people tend not to meet professors truly inspire. Even in top universities, students, I think, hope to have more opportunities of other interesting professors. Increasing this sort of opportunities motivates students more.