国際プロジェクト実習　【アメリカ】
National Center for Digital Government, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jihyun NA　[D3]
(Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, School of Legal and Political Studies)

　
During my visit to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, I have been able to greatly enhance my research.
There are four things that I would like to list as the most significant aspects of two months that I spent as a visiting fellow. First, I received helpful feedback from Dr. Fountain and the other research fellows at the NCDG for the research paper that I was working on for the past few months. By incorporating their suggestions, my paper became significantly improved. I am currently planning to publish the paper sometime during the next academic year. Second, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst had an excellent online database, which greatly helped me collect the materials that I needed for my dissertation research. For the American case, I am planning to conduct a historical study of the Social Security Number (SSN). Therefore, I mostly collected newspaper articles from various cities between 1930s and the 1980s. Through this research, I became more acquainted with how American citizens considered the privacy risks of information technology, as well as the relationship between the Social Security Number and the computer industry. Third, through interviews with local government officials, I found that there was a huge gulf between American and Japanese officials in their perceptions on national identification systems. This allowed me to sharpen the main concepts of my own research. Finally, the personal contacts that I made during my visit at NCDG will be a great asset for me in becoming a better researcher.
In addition, I would like to give some advice for students who wish to visit the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the future. While this may or may not be specific to the area that I visited, it was much easier to obtain useful information from other people by actually talking to them rather than searching on the internet or sending emails. Therefore, it is advisable to arrive at least a week early to become acquainted with the local area, as well as buying daily supplies before the beginning of the semester. Since it is difficult to live in college towns like Amherst without an automobile, it is much more efficient to first get a rough idea about what you will need for your everyday life. If you are looking for a place to stay, it will probably be cheaper to talk directly to the real estate agents in the area rather than booking a place on the internet. Since I also had to take care of my 3 year old son, I rent an apartment that was close to a kindergarten, but sending him off and picking him up was much more difficult than I had imagined before I arrived. Especially because it was so difficult to walk from the bus stop, I had to switch to another kindergarten after one of my friends told me that there was a more convenient place nearby. Overall, life was difficult, but I had the fortune of many, many kind people who helped me along the way.