I’m a chemical engineering college student in the US looking for an chemistry/engineering research opportunity in Japan for next year, is this possible?
I’ve been looking for a program/university that would allow me to do a research project/intern in Japan. I’ve been doing my own research about this as well as student exchange programs, but they just keep leading me back to the same sketchy companies who help people “intern abroad” for a stupid high price. Which is something I’d rather not do since it seems insane to pay for an internship.
For now my plan is just to reach out to universities/professors to see if anything like I described is possible to do for a 2023 summer session, but I was wondering if anyone here would have some advice or knowledge on how to do this better. Maybe someone reading this went through the same thing I’m about to go through, perhaps knowing of some obscure exchange program or website?
I wouldn’t mind paying a for summer tuition & accommodation if I’d be doing research at a university. I’ve been studying the language, but I’m not ready at all on a professional level. I realize that this limits my options, but I’m assuming there has to be **some** program/internship that would still accept me. If it’d be for a company I’d expect some assistance with the living costs. Are these reasonable expectations?
If anyone has advice that would even help a little bit, it would be appreciated.
I’d just like to experience Japanese culture/life while I’m still relatively young.
Anyway, Thank You
2 comments
(Edited out mean part of comment)
Here’s what I did relatively recently (2 months ago ~ present):
I went to top university websites, went to mechanical engineering department or faculty directory, found lab I’m interested in, reached out to professor.
E z pee z. Literally reached out to 6 professors, met with 6 professors in person (this part is different, they may have been more inclined to meet me since I am able to travel to Japan freely).
Most faculty here speak some degree of English, since most STEM papers are written and submitted to English journals.
Everything is reaching out, do that first and go from there. You probably don’t even need to know Japanese.
Oh and forgot to add, almost all “research student” programs at universities require you to pay some sort of tuition.