早稲田大学　国際教養学部　AO入試　志望理由書　提出例(岡本　公一 教授参考)

早稲田大学　国際教養学部　AO入試　志望理由書　提出例(岡本　公一 教授参考)

Dear Admission Office, 

First of all I would like to thank for the opportunity, and in this letter I will do my best to explain my interest in applying for School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University, hoping to pursue a major in International Politics and Peace Studies later in my academic years. I would be more than grateful if you could kindly give it a read and grant me an admission. During the in-person interview, I would also be delighted to expand more on my area of studies and what I wish to achieve with liberal studies curriculum including study abroad program.

Over the past dozen years, the global security climate has changed in dramatic, positive ways. Although mass media tends to focus on the negative, civil wars, genocides and international crises have all declined in both scale and number sharply. International wars, have been in steady decline for a much longer period, as have military coups and the average number of people killed per conflict per year. Is the world almost at peace? How do we assess international security in the 21st century?

To produce an analysis relevant to peace research, we need to clarify what war is like today and how it differs from wars in the immediate past. The international struggle for peace during the post-war period highlighted the dangers of both nuclear and conventional war between the two superpowers. In fact, during the long period of the ‘Cold War’ between ‘democracy’ and ‘communism’, which is when most of the various armed national liberation movements came into being, some were directly or indirectly linked to ‘communist’ powers and others to the liberation of the ‘third world’.

In most parts of the world the drop in conflict numbers started after the end of the Cold War. But in two important regions the decline started earlier. In the Middle East and North Africa, political violence began to decrease at the beginning of the 1980s. In East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania the decline in both the number and deadliness of armed conflicts started in the mid-1970s. Therefore, most of the world’s armed conflicts now take place in sub-Saharan Africa. The combination of pervasive poverty, declining GDP per capita, poor infrastructure, weak administration, external intervention and an abundance of cheap weapons, major decline in per capita foreign assistance, mean that armed conflicts in these countries are difficult to avoid, contain or end. 

With US and China in power, international security is at new risk, but studying the progress over the last decades would help us understand where we are and how we can realize a world without violence. I feel the strong need about gaining broad knowledge in international culture, peace and environmental studies to unlock different pockets of education that would help us find an area in which we can contribute to the world. And in order for me to attain high-level education and equip myself with what is needed to survive the next decades of globalization and competition, it is extremely important for me to take part in the study abroad program that would allow me to transfer to a school progressive in the field. Very excited to learn and study among like-minded students at Waseda where liberal studies is offered. Thank you very much for reading and I am very much looking forward to hearing good news.