TLDR: Looking to go to Japan for a summer internship but also get better at my Japanese language skills, what is the best process to look for a position?
Hi!
I’m posting this here because I was told by the mods of r/Japan that this post is best suited for this subreddit. I’m currently an undergraduate college student in the US, and I was thinking of trying to get an internship in Japan for the summer of 2023. I’m writing this post just to see if anyone here has done an internship in Japan, see what they did to search for a position and land an internship spot, and see if they had any advice.
The main reason I want to go to Japan for my internship is because I am also studying Japanese and looking to improve my Japanese skills by hopefully communicating with other Japanese people. This does seem to limit my choices though because I fear that I won’t find a position that allows me to practice my Japanese while still using primarily English (so I can understand my job).
The easiest option I’ve found are through companies such as Japan Internships or Meiji Internships that basically set you up with a company to intern with. The problem is that I don’t know how much I’ll be able to practice my Japanese and it’s a bit pricy (money isn’t that much of a problem, but if I don’t need to spend that much then that’s ideal).
My career services at my college basically gave me a website were I could search for positions related to Japan, but these jobs are Japanese companies that have locations in the US like Nintendo or they are companies that have some sort of affiliation with Japan. The listings are always a little bit vague, and there is the same problem that I don’t know if I will be able to improve my Japanese. I thought that maybe if I do a homestay with my internship, that will help my language skills.
My major right now is Engineering Physics, which I think also complicates things since most of the internships that I seem to find are marketing, teaching, graphic design, and other career fields.
So I’m just writing a post to see what other people have done to get internships in Japan, and if anyone was in a similar situation as to what I am in right now and what they ended up doing.
Thank you for the help!
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