Andrew Small
Asian Studies, BA
Political Science Minor
2023
Andrew’s most formative experience at Northeastern has been his research. The research opportunities he encountered has shaped not only what his interests are at Northeastern, but what he plans to do beyond his time as an undergraduate.
Andrew grew up in Japan, and decided to pursue his undergraduate degree back in the U.S.
Andrew applied to Northeastern as a Business major. As his high school career came to a close, he became more interested in Japanese politics, history, and social issues.
When thinking about what truly engaged him, Andrew felt that Asian Studies and Political Science was a better fit and switched his major to Asian Studies.
Andrew connected with Professor Daniel Aldrich after meeting him at a presentation of his book at the institute for social sciences at Tokyo University.
From his first day of classes, Professor Aldrich encouraged and helped Andrew get involved in research projects.
During his first semester, Professor Aldrich paired Andrew with Tim Fraser, a PhD candidate in Political Science with strong interests in disaster resilience in Japan.
With Tim, Andrew collected biographical information on the committee members on all the reconstructional committees on municipal, prefectural, and national level.
Andrew joined the Japanese Student Association in 2019 and remains a member, allowing him to connect with like-minded students.
One of Andrew's favorite classes was on Chinese Film. They would spend a day discussing film theory and Chinese politics, then another watching well-curated art house films.
During the pandemic, Andrew was able to continue researching export bans of agricultural products from the Fukushima prefecture of Japan.
In Fall 2020, Andrew took East Asian Politics with Professor Aldrich, where he used the data collection and quantitative analysis skills he learned from earlier research projects in class.
He had another opportunity to work with Tim on a project looking at renewable energy policy in Chiba prefecture.
In Summer 2021, Andrew worked on an intergenerational research team with Professor Aldrich conducting comparative analysis between Boston and Japan's climate change policy.
Andrew completed his first co-op remotely during the pandemic with the nonprofit organization Safecast in Japan, doing immersive field research on Fukushima.
In Summer 2 2021, Andrew did an internship with the JICA Kyrgyzstan office on the regional economic development project "One Village One Product."
Andrew will join the NU Political Review journal as a writer in the upcoming academic year, writing on Japanese Politics and the Asia-Pacific.
Andrew plans on applying to graduate schools in both the U.S. and Japan, likely to International Public Policy or Political Science programs.
Andrew hopes to end up working in policy research or a government agency in Japan.
“Asian Studies is focused enough for you to be able to carve out your niche in the field, but interdisciplinary enough to give you a broad skill set.”
