Areas of research as related to Mercantile Marine Studies include Nautical Studies, Maritime Machinery Management, Marine Engineering, Merchant Marine System Engineering, Nuclear Kinetics, Marine Control Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Transportation Science, etc. In addition to power systems engineering that involves actual propulsion of the vessel and the fundamentals of merchant marine, where maritime social science is learned, some graduate schools have set up international courses aiming to have exchanges from overseas. Active exchanges with the World Maritime University established by the United Nations as well as major maritime universities in Asian nations such as China and South Korea are maintained to conduct researches on marine transportation technology on a global scale. Many of the graduate schools offer smaller teaching environments that require students' to work harder in their studies. Students perform experiments and read related literature so they can write a thesis based on the results of their studies.
Some students even present their thesis to academic societies.
Importance of Awareness Toward Issues in People's Lives Under the discipline of early childhood studies, in addition to the lectures the students read literature related to their field and conduct clinical researches to study the development of children. Furthermore, in the area of home economics, research methods and results of such closely related categories as Economics and Sociology are adopted to challenge research subjects and natural themes of Home Economics. Literature in foreign languages is sometimes read. In these fields, it is important to maintain a clear awareness concerning issues involving humans and the motivation to research them. As attentions are called to the progress of society's aging population and decreasing number of children, a wide range of research is conducted that not only covers the school education system but also the lifelong and welfare education.