What do you think about the growing trend of "working PhDs"?

If students want to come back to our lab, I'm always happy to have them. At this point in time, a couple of people have come back to work on their PhD while working. However, there are not many cases now where people become "working PhDs" right after they start working. The current members of our lab have been working for 5 to 8 years before coming here. However, some of the companies that students go to work for have a strategy to increase the number of PhDs.

As for me, when I was a master's student, there were more than three students in each year who went on to doctoral courses, so I continued to a doctoral course without much hesitation, but I would be very happy if the students who got jobs also came back to get PhDs.

Is there a way to refresh yourself during research?

I don't think there is much of a boundary between rest and research. If I have a computer, I can work at home, but I try not to do much work at home. Recently, I have been playing online games with my children to refresh myself. I also try to get enough exercise by running 10 km every three days. It refreshes me because I get moderately tired. I also eat ramen. Before the COVID-19 epidemic, I used to go out for ramen with everyone in the lab. Depending on the research, we sometimes conduct experiments on test subjects during the evaluation stage, and in that case, we sometimes ask the students in the lab to help us as test subjects. Afterwards, we sometimes go out for ramen together. During normal research, it is refreshing to talk in the evening. In the evening, when I start to lose my concentration, I go to the students' room and talk with them in the common space to take a break.