About Natsuki Sacks
Natsuki Sacks is a sophomore at Glenelg High School. She chose to take Independent Research (IR) in hopes of broadening her academic interests and improving her college resume. She has been unsure about the major she wishes to take up in college and hoped that the class would eliminate a subject or uncover a new interest. Throughout the 2018-19 school year, she has enjoyed the independence that IR provides and the fact that it prepares students for higher level, information-dense courses by teaching them how to effectively analyze the dense academic journals, articles, and more. Additionally, the course has taught her many useful skills, such as interacting with professionals, creating infographics, creating portfolios, and portraying one's research in an understandable and impressive way. Through this course, Natsuki has found a love for international law and relations.
Conducting research
Shrine
Conducting research
Initially, Natsuki found difficulty in deciding on an issue to focus on for the year. In order
to find inspiration, her parents encouraged her to go through the news and pinpoint issues that she found interest in. Due to her Japanese heritage, she found Japan's shrinking population an interesting topic. How could such an impressively developed country have such a drastic crisis and be doing so little to prevent long-term, negative effects? Broadly, she wished to focus on the prevention of a declining economy due to a shrinking working population. This could be done by taking action to encourage the birth rate, lessen care for the elderly, or encourage more individuals to participate in the workforce.
Natsuki eventually decided on researching the ways to encourage individuals to join
the workforce; she soon discovered that the number of Japanese women in the workforce is surprisingly smaller than the female population of Japan. This is due to familial responsibilities given to women by society which ultimately increase the difficulty of juggling childrearing and a full- or part-time job. Natsuki found interest and extensive research on the Equal Employment Opportunity Law. She decided to focus her thesis on the effects of the EEOL and necessary improvements for the law. Additionally, she chose to support her thesis by acquiring information on Sweden, the world's third-most gender equal country, and comparing Sweden's legislative and societal actions to that of Japan's.
Will this research continue?
Although researching Japan's EEOL has been intriguing and Natsuki learned a lot, she does not believe she will be continuing her research on this particular subject. However, she found the subjects of international law/relations and policy making to be promising in the future. In the following school year, Natsuki wishes to pursue research in the profession of law.