Hi guys!
First of all, I am not really familiar with Reddit, but I thought this is the best place to reach my target audience all at once. My apologies if a similar post already exists.
I am a LL.M. law student from the Netherlands (22f) and I want to go to Japan just for one semester. My university is a partner university of the Keio University in Japan.
Japan and its culture always intrigued me, so the combination of following law subjects and discovering their culture and nature sounded as a perfect opportunity to me. However, I really don’t know where to start, think about housing, social aspects etc. The application deadline is 1 December 2022.
I really hope that some of the exchange students here can share their experience, so I can prepare myself a little bit.
Thank you so much in advance 🙂
2 comments
i went to Korea instead because I couldn’t go to Japan due to COVID, but I’d advice asking students from your uni who went in combination with the embassy and if you’re lucky current students in Keio
I went to Meiji in 2019, also with a partner program.
Usually with the partner uni, the tuition is free, they offer you dorms or housing options and you can choose japanese classes and your subjects there independently from your real major. I assume you haven’t studied japanese yet, so English courses would be your only option. Even at JLPT N3 level you wouldn’t really be able to follow the lectures.
Life there is normal uni life, but very relaxed. The workload, especially for exchange students, is very little compared to what we have here in Europe and sometimes the level starts quite low as well. I don’t know how good it’ll be at Keio though, since, at least on paper, they are ranked highr than Meiji. At least I had the chance to play tennis in a tennis circle (each uni had tons of clubs you can join, which I recommend, language barrier might be an issue though) 2-3 times a week with more socialising afterwards and I was able to make friends with other exchange students from my dorm. I’d recommend that as well, but you have to see what Keio offers in that regard. Another option a colleague did was staying at a Japanese family’s home, which probably gave him a better insight into Japan, but also isolated him from the other exchange students who mostly lived in 3 dorms around 1 of the 3 main campuses…
You should be able to find most information in this sub as well, maybe try the other Japan subs too, there already are a ton of such posts.
And adding to the other comment: My uni offered us articles on each uni written by former exchange students on how their exchange was.
Also try to find out the deadlines and needed documents for available scholarships. Even if it seems you’re unlikely to get it, try applying for it!