I’m currently a sophomore in college studying psychology with a minor in business, and want to study abroad in Japan for a year my junior year. My university has some exchange programs to choose from and I was wondering if anyone has experience studying abroad at these schools.
1. Osaka University
2. Rikkyo University
3. Hokkaido University
4. Keio University
5. Waseda University
6. University of Tokyo
7. Aoyama Gakuin University
For some context:
I’m half Japanese so I’ve visited Japan a couple times to visit family in Tokyo and love it there. My mom graduated from Aoyama so I have a pretty good idea of what it would be like to study there. I’ve passed N1 and would say I have a pretty good understanding of Japanese culture but am nervous when it comes to making friends.
What I am looking for:
I’m hoping to work in Japan in the future and really want to become fluent in Japanese. I’m looking to become friends with local people instead of other international students and want to go to a school that’s a little more laid back when it comes to school as I’ll be juggling an internship with it.
What I want to know:
If anyone has studied abroad at one of these Universities…
1. What was the social culture like? Student organizations? Parties?
2. What was the living situation like (international vs Japanese students)?
3. Would you say it was easy to make friends? If so, how and where did u make them?
4. Any other comments/advice about studying abroad would be greatly appreciated!
2 comments
Hey, I studied at a Japanese university before Covid-19 and first thing you should check with those universities is if they even let you come to Japan. A lot of my friends from university say that a lot of Japanese universities are still only offering online exchange programs so to say. So you attend lectures from your home country via zoom in the middle of the night etc.
Apart from that I would recommend you to do the internship separately, like after you are done with your semester at university because normally Japanese universities are not laid back in terms of attendance and that stuff, meaning if you are absent like 15-30% (depending on the university) of the time you will fail the course and maybe get your home university into trouble, because it is a university exchange program so they expect you are going there to study and not to have fun/work.
1. Other than that general info, I can tell you a bit about Waseda. Like any university there are clubs you can join and this meet Japanese students. These clubs will (depending on the club) also do parties.
2. if you decide to live in the dormitory, most big universities will have dormitories just for exchange students, maybe with a handful of Japanese living/working there as some kind of helping person. So most of the time you won’t have any Japanese in the dorms.
3. I did easily made some „friends“ in extra lectures I took, because obviously in your Japanese classes there will only be foreigners. But in the other lectures from the normal faculties there will of course be Japanese students mostly. I just talked to a few and made friends with them. (Though making „real“ friends may be an overstatement.)
Some general comments/advice: If possible, do your year(?) abroad at the end of your university program and just stay in Japan. Depending on the company you do your internship with, it is just so much easier to land a job if you can directly stay there and start working after your internship. Many foreign companies don’t hire university grads at all, apart from special graduate programs, they only hire people with x years experience. But if you work there, say, 6-12 months as a full time intern and you prove your worth, ok my experience they often do offer you a FTE contract (sometimes different departments/positions). But if you have to return to your home country to finish your university program or something and then return to Japan, say, a year later, they won’t offer you a contract because they don’t want to wait a year (where anything could happen) for your return.
As to the choice of your university, famous universities do look good on your CV. So something like Tokyo University or Waseda definitely will get you some attention during application processes. I always got asked about my university during interviews. And some/most/all universities have an office that helps students finding work using alumni networks etc, so you should also check if these offices can help you when you‘re coming as an exchange student, because some will only help their regular students.
And as I mentioned above, I would separate internship and university. So do your university first and after that do a 6-18months internship. Most companies I know require you to at least speak a certain level of Japanese and they also want you to work at least 3 days full-time. Depending on your university lecture schedule you might have difficulties working at the same time.
I hope that wall of text is helpful. If you have any questions about Waseda or universities/internships in Japan in general, feel free to ask. I may not know the other universities on your list but I heard a lot about other universities from my friends back then.
Reach out to your university’s study abroad office. They’ll likely have more granular information about the differences between the programs at these universities. Likely there will be some sort of difference in the basic structure of the program.
For example, I studied abroad in Spain in college. My university had 3 programs in Spain, universities A, B, and C. When I dug into the details of the programs it turned out that the program at University A was aimed at folks who didn’t speak Spanish and offered a bunch of public health/science classes in English. The program at University B was mostly focused on learning Spanish and offered intensive language courses alongside subject matter courses taught in English. The program at University C was a full Spanish immersion program where you took all your classes in Spanish, with some being a mix of special classes made for exchange students and some being regular university classes. The 3 programs were *totally* different and the type of experience you wanted determined what program you went on.
Your university likely has a similar set up. Ask the study abroad office about the differences between the programs