Hi ! I'm (F19) currently a freshman in community college and since Junior year, I think I want to study in Japan. However, I'm honestly lost (or not confident enough) in planning on how I could actually, and realistically, achieve that.
I live in the Southeast part of the US, so there's frankly not a lot of opportunities here for programs and degrees that align with my career goals and interests. I consider myself a fairly good artist with a decent knowledge in anatomy, perspective, and the such as I've been drawing seriously for a couple of years now, and I hope I can refine my skills and expand upon them by entering some program in a Japanese vocational school or college for arts, specifically manga illustration. In short terms, I hope to pursue some sort of career in manga illustration. THOUGH, I will very much stress that I am very, very (and maybe not aware enough) aware how difficult, if not, impossible that is as a foreigner to get a job, let alone one in the manga industryEspecially a non-Asian foreigner.
But I don't want that to deter me for the most part, I appreciate honesty and realism but I'm also hoping I can have a very in-depth conversation about this. As of now, I'm not pursuing any specific degree (and at most, have been entertaining the thought of an associate's in Illustration/Digital Media), I occasionally study Japanese in my own time but not enough to even scratch N5. What I have in first mind, aside from tuition fees and other expenses, is to go to a language school for a full year and half/two years for N2 and meet the requirements of most, if not all, schools (vocational or college) in Japan since I know they require applicants to prove that they are at Japanese Level N2 in order to attend any courses in their programs. That's what I have planned for the most part, to pursue some degree here in the US while I save up for language school in Japan so I can then later look into vocational schools or colleges with programs that I'm interested in.
I know I'm not very knowledgeable in any of this, which is probably adding to this uncertainity I feel with going through with this (which is highly risky by a financial stance, since I do not come from the most financially secure household, and just fortunate enough to be on a financial aid program for college as of right now). Whether I choose to live or work in Japan for the long-term is a separate question, but I hope my dreams of studying there aren't too unrealistic so I'll just be mentally preparing myself for the brutality that is this subreddit's honesty, since I did snoop around some posts before writing this ( ；∀；)
EDIT))))): I realized I was going on a half-asleep tangent without saying anything. But here is my question: I feel lost in my planning, as currently I am in community college not obtaining any specific degree at the moment, but still planning to use my time in community college to save money in order I can study abroad. I know most schools require a Japanese fluency level of N2, so I want to go to language school in the country to increase my fluency in Japanese but is it really realistic and possible for a foreigner to complete language school and get into a vocational school/college to study manga illustration? (As I would hope to get some career in the manga industry or related to manga outside of it)
by Yawaworth00lol