Give me your opinions on waseda

9 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Give me your opinions on waseda**

   I initially had no plans of studying abroad, however having recently visited waseda campus (initially just to see the murakami library) i found that i really liked the overall vibe of the campus and surrounding area, can i get your opinions on the university, both undergraduate and graduate studies. Im interested in engineering, physics or architecture. Would you advise me against it, if so why.

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2. For context i have the equvalent of a average 95% on my exam card in Denmark. So i imagine that with some proper preparation in my 2 gap years i should have “alright” chances for admission.

3. It is a tier 1 private school along with its rival Keio university. It holds a lot of weight in Japan and even outside of Japan to some extent.

   It is famous for liberal arts, business, law and econ majors.

4. Waseda no longer offers a physics program if I recall a they discontinued one of their English based Engineering programs and I think it was Advanced Engineering (Physics, Chem, Bio?).

   I recommend their graduate program in that it offers an opportunity to explore Japan while still being relatively affordable. Can’t say I’d advise people to go to Waseda’s English-undergrad, but if your school offers study abroad take it!!

5. I graduated from Waseda and work in Japan. I am Korean, fully fluent in Japanese. It is true, that Waseda graduates including international students are exposed to good opportunities, moving on to world class graduate schools (but not top American schools) such as Oxford, LSE, INSEAD etc.

   For career wise, yes such as joining global companies located in Tokyo such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Big 4, JP Morgan, Apple, Amazon etc. not to mention local Japanese big companies. I know some of my friends including non-Japanese guys who got good jobs, and I myself do get paid relatively good considering I just joined this year in an entry level position.

   I have met and know quite a lot of whites and blacks and browns in our uni, and I will tell you based on that.

   So here I go.

   HONESTLY speaking, unless you go to Tier 1 universities such as Tokyo Tech or U Tokyo and U Kyoto, as a white guy with no Japanese background(N2 level before joining uni) I don’t think it’s worth it.

   It is because highly likely(99%) when you graduate, your Japanese is going to be non-usable in corporate environment. You will 99% likely to go back home, to Denmark, and your degree will not be as prestigious as it was in Japan.

   The ONLY, and I emphasise again, ONLY successful international students are Koreans and Chinese, or those who already got their JLPT N1 before enrolment. It is because of the language barrier. Koreans and Chinese don’t need N1, they can be N5, because they can get N1 in a few months because how close the languages are. That’s why I emphasise the only successful people are Koreans and Chinese in most cases. Because most of international students don have N1 prior to enrolment.

   And it is very hard to overcome this language barrier as a white guy in 3 years (considering job-hunting time) I would say virtually impossible (I have numerous reasons but I won’t mention them). I have never met them. If you could, you should be in Harvard, not Japan and IQ of 140 or above.

   So, go to Oxbridge or LSE, Ivy schools if you can, or go local.

   If you are aiming for graduate schools after undergraduate, try U Tokyo and U Kyoto and Tokyo Tech, those are the only schools you should aim. They have good reputation around the world especially in science, you can go really good grads schools like Oxbridge Harvard, Stanford etc.

   If you can’t get into these schools, forget about it, go local.

6. Lots of folks at waseda (including myself) are only there for a single abroad year as part of an exchange program. I opted to take mainly Japanese language classes and other liberal studies classes rather than any computer science classes, which is my actual area of study, since they seemed likely to be less valuable than what I could get at home.

7. Look into the CSE Global Engineering Education Exchange program. They offer one year study abroad (maybe more than one year) with universities all over the world, and it seems like Denmark is one of the participating countries. Tohoku University, part of Japan’s “big 3” best public universities alongside University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, is part of the program. If I were to do STEM in Japan, it would be at Tohoku University.

8. I have a very good impression of Waseda. I have worked for 3 foreign companies in a span of 20 years. Many of the people I hired were from Waseda or Aoyama Gakuin or Sophia. I am not a people manager now, but I have visited Waseda as they are a customer of the company I work for and the campus and area seem nice. I can also say they seem to really care about the quality of their resources for students.

   Good luck!

9. Domestically it’s top, globally it’s a C or D level school.