Abstract:

Compared to the pre-internet era, university students living in today's information society experience a markedly diminished sense of others' presence. Even when it comes to something as basic as news consumption, unlike the time when everyone read the same newspapers, individuals now read articles customized to their own preferences. Opportunities for sharing common experiences with others have decreased, environments in which resources must be shared have diminished, and awareness of the public and of society as a collective has weakened. University career education exists within this context.

Career education can be defined as education that cultivates the fundamental abilities necessary to live independently in society in the future, and that fosters the capacity to choose one’s life course and career based on one’s own intentions and to achieve social and professional independence. However, it is worth questioning whether career education in practice truly fulfills this role.

In Japan, many companies adopt a system of recruiting new graduates simultaneously. As a result, once students reach their third year, many begin researching companies with the goal of securing employment. Career education at university curricula also tends to be designed with this mass recruitment system in mind, functioning primarily as a bridge between universities and companies. However, serving merely as a link between companies and universities cannot, in itself, be considered “education.” At present, there is an insufficient connection between academic learning at universities as institutions of scholarship and this form of career education.

This paper does not position career education as a form of preparatory experience useful only for job-hunting activities. Instead, it describes an initiative in which Project-Based Learning (PBL) is implemented, corporate challenges are addressed, and students acquire practical methods for participating in multi-person projects within actual companies. Through this process, students develop perspectives that allow them to understand and engage with people whose positions differ from their own. Furthermore, as students who learn academic disciplines through concrete PBL assignments, they identify social issues and pursue them in depth. These opportunities are created for students to reflect on the society that surrounds them and on themselves as individuals living within it.

This paper presents these concepts alongside concrete examples of third-year students' corporate proposals and academic conference presentations from the 2025 academic year. The students initially applied their university learning to propose solutions for a specific challenge faced by one company in the advertising industry, thereby becoming aware of the underlying issues within the information society. Subsequently, they explored contemporary society using advertising as an example, adopting the perspective of academic inquiry characteristic of university students. Through this learning process, they cultivated their university education as a foundation for navigating society.

Keywords:

Project Based Learning, The internet Society, Team, Advertisement.