I want to preface this by saying that while got a lot of good stuff going for me, I’m not doing this to brag or anything, I’ve legitimately hit a mental slump recently and I don’t really know what to do to get out of it. Edited for paragraph spacing.
​
Currently I am here on a government scholarship to get my undergraduate degree at a Japanese university. I had previously come here as a missionary due to familial pressure and at the end of it I came home ready to leave but also cut off from a lot of opportunities for independence because of COVID, toxic family environment, and lack of “adulting” experience in my home country (USA). I didn’t see a future for myself there because of said lack of life experience and my parents being unable and unwilling to help me as well. (Large family + High Income = Not much financial assistance being available for me) Taking on debt seemed scary and having to suddenly put an insane amount of work inside and outside of school to someday make my own future also seemed depressing and unfair. I admit that I could have swallowed my pride and put myself through community college or something but I really wasn’t doing very good mentally and I needed to get out of my house and on my own so I thought the scholarship would be good.
​
I applied for the government scholarship cause a full ride obviously seemed like a great deal and there also were legitimately great parts of living here. I loved the multicultural interaction I got to participate in during the missionary experience and I thought I could somehow find a way to make a career related to that. Without really going into how absurd the first “preparatory school” year of the scholarship was, the short of it is I ended up at a pretty “high rank” university (by Japanese standards) outside of Tokyo studying for a Humanities major. I also found an romantic partner and we have been in a semi-long distance relationship. So materially speaking I don’t have much to complain about but mentally speaking it’s become rough and I’ve started to have moments of regret about being here and concern about how it’s all going to turn out.
​
University here is just mind numbing, there is the occasional engaging class, but many of them are just sitting for hours listening to your professor ramble about stuff that can be read off the PowerPoint. A lot of classes can be passed by just showing up, sleeping through your lectures, and just turning something for whatever assignment comes up. Actual meaningful discussion is rare, and I have gotten to a point where I am starting to experience anxiety having to sit through these pointless lectures and I have been skipping a lot of them when I can. I did a bit of university online back in the US and you could say it was similar, but I felt like I could make more of a social connection with my teachers and have way more open and meaningful conversations with my classmates. As for my classmates, they are nice people, but they are all the kind of kids that studied hard to get here and have no experience or worldview outside of that. It’s hard to describe but it feels suffocating and I find that I spend a lot more time with other international students or calling/visiting my girlfriend than I do with the Japanese students.
​
A combination of all of this has really taken a toll on my motivation and hope for the future. I am sure I can graduate from university somehow but the idea of working here and possibly contributing to society went from being an interesting adventure to something I am starting to be afraid of. The language is not an issue as I have N1 and I converse at school/work/internships without much issue. With the work culture here and the way you sometimes see foreigners get treated in the news I am worried that there is not going to be a light at the end of the tunnel for me in the form of a decent job and a fulfilling life. They have recently started to worry about the coming labor shortage and have been paying lip service to wanting to be welcome to foreign people and ideas but when I look around me, I just see a place that is ambivalent or sometimes hostile to my existence. It also probably sounds entitled of me, but it just feels depressing to think that there’s a chance I won’t be able to achieve the same level of wealth/success as my parents and that I’ll be stuck in this country that is doing nothing to stop it’s slow spiral of death.
8 comments
Okay, my advice would be stop worrying about what other people and the country are doing and focus on yourself.
You don’t need to become rich like your parents. You don’t need to contribute to society and you don’t need to save this country.
What you need to do is to graduate university and get a job that doesn’t suck. That’s not an impossible task. Research what kind of jobs are available to you and read reviews about those companies. I would recommend applying to foreign companies as they usually have the better working cultures.
>there’s a chance I won’t be able to achieve the same level of wealth/success as my parents and that I’ll be stuck in this country that is doing nothing to stop it’s slow spiral of death.
Nothing’s stopping you in taking a job/grad school opportunities in another country after you graduate.
Japan’s my third country. I have moved during university from my home country to another country, work, and then moved here during grad school. I am still finding some disappointments here that i think I may move out after graduation + few years work.
Why settle when you’re not happy with what you got and you CAN get something better.
Be open-minded about change. There’s a lot more to life than what you see in the undergrad.
Sounds like you’ve already written Japan off based on very little actual knowledge of how adult life in Japan works. If you’re actually at a top university and can get into a top company after graduating, a very comfortable and financially stable life awaits you. Japan, more so than most countries, your quality of life is almost entirely dependent on which company you work for rather than what job you do. Even if you get a shitty boss or something, it’s very easy to jump from one top company to another. Like, having Sony on your resume opens the door to every other top company in Japan, and vice versa.
>but the idea of working here and possibly contributing to society
>a fulfilling life
Stop right there.
This is an all too common mistaken thinking of young people who haven’t had any experience working a non-baito job.
The truth is that very, very few established workers find fullfilment from their job or feel they’re like are contributing to society (even if they are doing absolutely crucial work like doctors, lawyers, firefighters, teachers etc). **That’s because after *x* years every job begins to feel like a grind.**
The truth is a lot of jobs are pointless themselves or have pointless aspects to them (even in the west), no different to the pointlessness of your university experience. Doubly so for any kind of white-collar office work.
Even my brother who is an elite IT consultant living in the centre of an expensive European city says he’s *only* in it for the money. You’d think at his salary tier his job would have some meaning to humanity but in fact it doesn’t.
Do not ponder the societal value of your future job too much, and instead consider the salary, the holidays available and any other tangible perks from the job. Otherwise, you will suffer.
To conclude, you need to find fullfilment from your hobbies and your relationships in your private time, not your job. Your job gives you resources that enable you to enjoy your free time, but your job isn’t your life. This concluding paragraph also applies to your studies as well *(you should see university only as a ticket for finding a job)*.
Hope this helps.
1. Finish your degree, it’s paid for, it’s free, it’s only 4 years which seems like a lifetime but trust me it isn’t.
2. Finish your degree, you won’t have as many options if you don’t, unless you go into the trades back home you’re going to want that degree.
3. Finish your degree – like I said it’s free – you will graduate with a huge advantage over your peers in the US which is you’re going to graduate without 100,000USD in debt.
4. I might be sounding like a broken record but once you have that degree they can’t take it away from you, and trust me long term you’ll want it, even if you don’t do anything with it. And if you want to stay here you really need it.
5. Drink a strong zero and a couple of cups of coffee and put your magic undies in the closet and finish your degree.
A lot of Japanese university students get other qualifications on the side while they’re in Uni to help with their job prospects. They also do summer internships. Maybe try talking to a career counselor or someone at your school and see what you can do. Off the top of my head I know a guy who got his teaching license on the side while attending university, and another guy who’s got his accounting license.
Sometimes it’s gonna be rough – just keep going and whenever you have the opportunity to do something interesting, even if it’s not your usual thing, try it! It could lead you in a new direction.
If you’re forced to endure hours of boring lectures (and eventually hours of boring meetings at your workplace) you should do something with all that extra mental real estate. Anything is ok. Learn a new language and drill through vocabulary in a notebook. Memorize trivia facts. Plot out a story or novel. Learn to draw. Think seriously about the books and media you’ve seen recently instead of just consuming and immediately forgetting them. At least then you can spin it positively and not write it off as a waste of time.
As a former student at a Japanese university and a current professor at a different one… I find that Japanese universities are really what you make of them. It’s definitely much easier to just float by and graduate here, but if you make the effort to get involved, I think you will find it much more fulfilling. I think you’ll find many of your professors would love to talk to you and answer any questions you might have, even the ones whose lectures are boring. There are also probably many clubs, events and activities on camp, many of them academic. But you will need to be proactive and find/go to them on your own.
Making friends can also be difficult, but that’s what going to clubs and circles is good for. I also hate to say it, but language barriers are still a thing, even at N1, and language skills don’t necessarily make up the lack of commonalities in other places (do you listen to the kind of music your classmates do? Watch the same shows?), along with basic differences in conversational styles. Be humble, ask questions… And yeah, you’ll need to do the leg work.
Finally… If your program has a 3rd/4th year seminar, that is something you should try to look forward to. It’s much easier to make friends and, if you want it, you can develop a much more satisfying relationship with your advisor/professor–I honestly didn’t find such opportunities were available for me as an undergraduate in North America.
But either way. The government scholarships are very generous and it’s a privilege to have it. Enjoy the rest of time you have on it, go off and have fun–and graduate!