From Engineer to Researcher: Reflections on My Gap Year

Merry Christmas, everyone! メリークリスマス!

You might have noticed my website has been silent since June 2025.However, this silence wasn’t empty—it was a necessary pause.I stepped back from the daily grind of coding to answer a bigger question: What is the next step for an IT/DATA Engineer in the era of AI?

The catalyst for this break was actually an “unfinished” idea. Before leaving my previous project, I was fascinated by a Proof of Concept (PoC) involving AI-assisted log keyword extraction using Regex. It was a challenging problem: how to combine the determinism of engineering with the probabilistic nature of AI. Although I didn’t get the chance to implement it fully at the time, the problem stuck with me.

It made me realize a gap in my own career. My undergraduate major was Telecommunications, not Computer Science. While I have accumulated years of hands-on experience with GCP and data pipelines, I often felt the need for a stronger theoretical foundation to truly solve complex, data-centric problems—not just as an engineer who uses tools, but as a researcher who understands them.

So, I decided to take a gap period. For the past six months, I haven’t been “unemployed”; I have been re-educating myself.

I spent this time improving my English proficiency to bridge the gap to the global academic community, while searching for a master’s program that values both industrial experience and academic potential.

As of this December, the fog has cleared.

I have set my sights on a specific goal: a university in Tokyo that I have admired since my high school days. It is a place where engineering meets rigorous science, and I am determined to be a part of it.

My mission for the immediate future is clear:

1. Conquer the TOEFL: To prove my language readiness for an international research environment.
2. Deepen Technical Theory: To transition my mindset from “how to build” to “why it works.”
3. Master Basic Japanese: Since my dream school is in Tokyo, this is a fundamental step.

This blog will document my journey from the industry back to academia. It might be a steep climb, but I am ready.

Here’s to clarity, hard work, and making dreams come true in 2026.