I was thinking of attending an art school in Japan to get an MFA, but I am afraid that I will need university level knowledge of Kanji and such. I know that with art in general there is a lot more emphasis on concept through visual and intuitive understanding, so I am hoping that I will not be reading textbooks, or at least very minimally. I am thinking of the “Composite art field,” which is essential a visual art type major. I have been looking Tohoku University of Art and Design, but it seems that they have very few foreign students, when looking at their posted statistics.
7 comments
I will give you an advice:
Don’t go to Japan if you don’t know the language.
Luckily I pickup languages quite quickly and after 2 months I am able to speak elementary level Japanese. Try to get your JLPT L3 exam first. Japanese people don’t speak English in general
I went to 東京デザイナー学院 and the nice thing about having N2 or N1 when you take the entrance test and/or interview, you don’t have to write an essay to prove your language proficiency.
As for the classes themselves, general N3 level might be a bit stressful (at least in my case (graphic design) we always had a bunch of assignments and understanding them was half the struggle). If you study Japanese here first you should be ok though.
I believe many universities require N2– you should check with the programs you’re interested in. But at least N2 is a good bet.
Even if you’re not reading textbooks, you’ll have handouts, your professor will lecture, etc. And all of your administrative stuff will be in Japanese.
At least get N2, i’m not sure about art what exactly you will do in the university but you will need fluent japanese. Classes, classmates , Teachers, seminars, books etc will be in japanese, so consider that.
I was at japanese school before and some classmates that aim for 大学 or 専門学校 aim for N1 or N2. Good luck and learn well the language…if not you will struggle to catch up everything.
Generally speaking the bare minimum is JLPT N2. Realistically speaking you’ll struggle to keep up even with N1.
You’ll probably want to do two years of language school to help get you there.
Good luck!
Sure, can do like that. Don’t be surprised if you fail bevause of your lack of listening and reading skills
I went to a fashion vocational program in Japan for fun during one of the longer breaks from my career, and in my program, many of the foreign students were admitted after attending a language program whereupon they obtained the equivalent of N2. From my observation, N2 was nowhere near enough since most of the students in that situation could barely follow classes (and we had a very impatient homeroom teacher). Quite a few of them were reliant on more fluent classmates to get certain basic things done, like getting their sewing machines repaired. Certain classes required essays and reports, and they could barely comprehend the material, much less do independent research. The more social kids with lots of friends made it work out somehow, but if you happen to be really introverted, I’d suggest getting N1 before going into a specialized program.