Akinao Nose
Professor
Department of Complexity Science and Engineering

Do you know what the phrase “Two years washing, three years schmoozing, one year mooching” means?
This saying was a kind of “house rule” in the Okada Tokindo Laboratory (Developmental Biology), Department of Biophysics,Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University, where I spent my graduate years.
It describes what one does during the Master’s Program, the Doctoral Program, and the year that follows.

In fact, my Master’s Program truly was “two years washing.”
My days were filled with tasks ranging from washing pipettes and making pure water (by distilling tap water three times in a kettle!) to taking care of mice (cleaning cages and feeding them).
The “three years schmoozing” refers to the period of promoting oneself at academic conferences and other venues.
Our laboratory had a rule, “If you do not ask at least one question at a conference, you forfeit your travel expenses.”
There were even rumors of this actually happening, so we attended conferences with a real sense of tension.
Even so, it was often difficult to secure employment, and “one year mooching” refers to a period of relying on someone else for support.

Professor Okada was a “legendary professor” in the classic Kyoto University sense and left behind many memorable (or perhaps nonsensical) sayings. The phrase mentioned above is one of them.
It may be perceived as somewhat harsh by today’s standards, but it was a form of discipline grounded in genuine care.
The students were all growing freely.
Making a living through basic research has always been challenging, both in the past and today.
Yet, Professor Okada taught us the importance of turning such hardships into something we could laugh about and enjoy, as well as the realities of perseverance.
It was precisely because he genuinely worried about his students struggling to find employment that he encouraged us with this “house rule.”

Before I knew it, I had reached the age that he was back then.
I can only hope that the spirit of enjoying research has been passed on to my own students.