Hello, I will be transferring to japan in the spring for a semester and I have three choices of school. It is between J F Oberlin, Kansai Gaidai, and Tokyo International university. I have looked over the classes and schools themselves, Kansai Gaidai seems like the best choice academically and school enjoyment wise, but I am worried about missing out on certain aspects of the Tokyo area. I really enjoy Japan’s jazz music and the automotive culture and would like to surround myself in that as much as possible, partly to why living in kawagoe or machida would get me much closer to these kinds of events. Any advice or further questions would be appreciated thanks
by gedooker
3 comments
I went abroad for grade 11 and for 3 months of the 9 I lived really close to Kansas Gaidai. The campus was really cute and the people walking by seemed happy.
I can’t answer anything specifically because I didn’t do an exchange as a uni student.
Osaka has a lot of stuff to do as well and personally I think more opportunity to talk with locals (not just in Osaka but in neighbouring cities as well) and you’re close to many other major cities with so much to offer!
But of course some people really just want the Tokyo experience which is okay too.
I say look into cities surrounding each and think about which one you’ll get the most out of
I was supposed to do a full year at Kansai Gaidai back in 2015; I ended up only doing one semester and switching to another program in Tokyo instead.
TL;DR: KGU is a lot of fun and offers great cultural activities and sightseeing, but I think you have to work triple hard to actually improve your Japanese while you’re there, unlike smaller or more intense language programs.
Long version:
The pros of KGU: They have lots of cool cultural classes in English you can take (I enjoyed the Deaf Culture course, which got me interested in Japanese Sign Language), great access to general Kansai area sightseeing on weekends, and lots of English support if you need it. You can join lots of different clubs, and the girl I met through the Speaking Partner Program is still a dear friend to me all these years later (she visited me in turn when she studied abroad in the US, and we meet up in Japan every couple years too). Some of the best (American) friends I made were from KGU, including my best friend who ended up living with me in Japan again a couple years later.
The cons of KGU: So. Many. Foreign students. There were like 300+ of them while I was there, and I would say the vast majority were just there for a fun semester in ~exotic Japan~ and not because of having any actual plans to become fluent in Japanese.
Now, don’t get me wrong, wanting to do a fun party semester abroad is absolutely an acceptable reason to study abroad. you do you. But I was serious about improving my Japanese. I’ll never forget the day my Japanese club member turned to me and told me “Don’t worry Sayjay, being at KGU is just like being in America! Everyone speaks English here”. She meant it as a comfort, but to me it was quite disheartening.
I know some people luck out with great host families too, which is a nice pro for KGU, but I was one of the ones who ended up with a less-than-kind host family. In hindsight I should have reported it to the school, but at the time, I was too young and naive to realize that some of their treatment was not appropriate.
I had a very positive experience at KGU but I would echo the “bubble-ness” of it all. It’s a great place if you want to be surrounded by 100’s of other foreigners with similar possible interests, not the place to be if you want to be immersed in a more “authentic” Japanese university experience, whatever that may be.
Its location and proximity to Osaka and Kyoto is a really nice strength. Keep in mind you’ll have to do some work to transit to either area if you want to go to either area regularly – doing that weekly is pretty reasonable, trying to do it several times a week would start to get more unreasonable.
Tokyo has its tradeoffs, I feel. You can find a variety of everything in Tokyo. At the same time some of the “better” connections I made with people over hobbies happened not in Tokyo. A big part of that was seeking out experiences and places not a lot of foreigners tend to find themselves, and in some sense that felt easier to do outside Tokyo.