This is going to be a long one.
I’m a 19 y/o who is infatuated with Japan and speak somewhere around an N5, nearing N4 level. I’ve been to Japan once for 4 months for college at TUJ last year and enjoyed my time, and want to go back. Though, after looking through this subreddit, my thoughts have been jumbled.
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I’ve wanted to get out of America since I was \~15 and picked Japan since I was \~17. I only recently checked reddit, and before that I had always been told that English teaching was a solid career choice. Now that I’ve come here, it sounds moreso like a prison job at a black eikaiwa and that I should reconsider and need to speak at a business level N2 near-fluent level before even considering moving back to Japan, and even then would find a better education in the states and THEN travelling to Japan.
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The first half of this post is going to be me talking about my experiences so that those less knowledgeable, younger, and stupider can understand how this has all gone from the eyes of someone who was in that spot once, since I have a LOT to say about TUJ and my whole experience. The second half will be my personal questions to the subreddit. I’m new to reddit, so I apologize in advance for formatting errors.
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It’s not uncommon for this thread to have “THAT” post that reads something along the lines of “i’m a 17-18 year old who really wants to go to japan and i dont know japanese (but ive been learning hiragana for the past month!) and i dont have any marketable skills but i want to study as soon as i graduate high school with my 2.7 GPA so is there anywhere in japan that offers english courses and teaches japanese and can set me up for a rich and prosperous future comparable to that of a middle eastern sheikh? thanks!” and naturally that post is bombarded with people who tell them that they have no chance and that it’s not even worth it.
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For these people however, they usually DO look at one place in particular, or end up finding it – TUJ. To these people, this place sounds like heaven on earth. It’s an American Uni out in Japan that teaches in English, can help them learn Japanese, and gives them a totally legit degree in a pretty vast number of fields. With all that, it’s also decently cheap with all things considered regarding American college. Sounds perfect, right?
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Well, after all the paperwork and processing, you finally end up in Tokyo as a student of TUJ ready to start “a new life” in Japan. If only. I’m sure most of you have seen [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/tvx343/friends_dont_let_friends_or_even_enemies_go_to/) post about how TUJ students lack the basic knowledge in their career path to even land an entry-level position. Believe what you want about it, but from firsthand experience I can personally say that I can totally see how 13 applicants can know NOTHING about a career field they apparently have a degree in if they got that degree from TUJ.
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TUJ is mostly American with \~35-40% Japanese. For the Americans, it’s a way into Japan, and for the Japanese it’s a way out. A lot of the Japanese students are going into career fields in Law and Business so they can land a good job in America (or a Commonwealth Country) and screw off from Japan. They usually come from wealthy families and are just there for connections and a gateway to America in an English learning environment and a place that can give them an American degree. I can see this being a good venture, since most of the professors are either English-speaking natives or Japanese who speak English, so there is rarely ever room for miscommunication, and they usually already speak VERY GOOD English (usually at least around a 9th grade level), so they’ve basically got it all set, and apparently many of them do end up moving country and working for prestigious companies and/or embassies.
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The Americans however are most exactly how I was – an overoptimistic 18 year old kid who doesn’t know what they just got into. Very few people didn’t fit this bill. Only difference for me was that I was entirely funding myself with no scholarships and the past 3 years saving up from part-time at McDs while most everyone else was on their parents dime and/or the government’s handouts for their old man losing his leg to an IED in Afghan ’09. I had enough money for one semester, but these people get the full ride, side effects included.
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As I said, the professors are either English-speaking natives or Japanese who speak English. When I say “English-speaking natives”, I mean that these people don’t speak Japanese. My best guess is that they were teaching at the main campus in PA, but asked to be moved to Japan or simply got relocated, and they live a comfy life on an American professor’s salary in a gaijin bubble with no intention to ever learn or adapt to Japanese culture/language, even if they’ve been there for 5, 10, or sometimes even 20 years. These people do not care about your education. They’re simply people who treat their job as a semi-early retirement in a beautiful country under the stipulation that they spent 35 – 40 hours “teaching” college courses to uninterested American young adults who aren’t there for the actual education, but rather the setting. Naturally the courses suck when neither the professor OR the students care and both of them just want the class to end so they can go back out for a night on Shibuya or Shinjuku to get schwasted on Super Dry’s and have one night stands with gaijin hunters.
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The Japanese staff are better, but not by much. They are ESLs, and what TUJ must consider “fluent English” is very lax. Imagine taking a college class where you can only understand anywhere between 50% – 80% of the words the professor is actually saying, and also any question you ask is met with confusion from the professor themselves. Not because they don’t know the answer, but because they don’t know the English that you just said to them, or spoke too fast, or they’ve never heard your accent (I come from a family of Danes and am the first-generation red-blood ‘murican patriot, no shit I’m gonna have an accent).
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I – much like most Americans – was majoring in Japanese (this is a mistake, do NOT do this, just take the classes as a minor or something) and despite this I didn’t even spend my ONE SINGLE SEMESTER in TUJ in a JAPANESE 101 COURSE. They were apparently too booked with people signing up for the course. How can this be? Well, there are 2 types of American students at TUJ. Japan Admits and Study Abroads. Study Abroads are people who are from the main campus (or occasionally the Rome campus, because Temple has a fucking campus in Rome) who faff about in Japan for a semester. Japan Admits are the people in for the long haul. Apparently, the Study Abroad students get to decide their classes FIRST since they can do it well in advance as they’re already in the system THEN the JA students get to come along and take the scraps. In a vacuum, that sounds fine, but this school is English-based and set in Japan, so obviously the Japanese courses will be popular. Not only that, but the JA students are the ones most likely to take a Japanese major, and even if not they are the most in need of Japanese knowledge, but when I tried to get into a Japanese course, THEY WERE ALL FULL (including the evening ones and the ones with wonky times) so I – a Japanese major meant to live in Japan for 2.5 to 4 years – wasn’t prioritized for learning Japanese over John Dudebro and Jake TrustFund who are here for a 3 month vacay. Amazing system, and I ended up having to go into fucking Chinese for the semester instead. I heard the Japanese classes are the only actually good ones, too.
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So it all kinda sucks, but you – as an 18 year old who doesn’t know any better and have never even been in a college setting – see no problem and think this is fine. It’s Japan, baby! After classes you get to see cool temples and chat it up with locals and avoid the kinda alarming amount of men who would have fit in better as sexpats than they would have as student residents. No joke, most of my friends during my time in TUJ seemed to spend every other weekend going to Kyoto, or Osaka, or Hiroshima, or Sapporo, etc. I was too poor and stayed in the same couple districts in Tokyo.
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I got a job about 2 months in as a part-timer in housekeeping. It was an OK job, definitely not the worst job I’ve ever done. I needed money since I was poor and financially irresponsible. 28 hours a week is not enough for any kid wondering if they can book it with their savings from being a part-timer at Walmart for a year alongside a job in Japan. That’s why most people are on the GI bill or insane amounts of student loans, and as such don’t give two shits about getting a job. Reminder: a good bit of the Americans are here to have fun in Japan for an extended period and maybe kinda set up a future somewhere along the way when they get to it.
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Speaking of that future, what happens after graduation? Personally, I don’t even know. I was there for one semester, ran low on funds since I was self-sustaining with basically no debt (as per my parent’s wishes, since “debt is evil”) and came back home as soon as the semester ended and dropped out entirely. As a “Japanese” major I learned no Japanese. I don’t remember anything from the Maths or English class I went to, and god knows I completely forgot what little Chinese they taught me.
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But if you are one of the souls who graduates, congratulations! Chances are you’ll go back to America and tell all those people interviewing you how educated you are because you studied overseas in Japan. That or you’re Japanese and your plan was to leave Japan anyways, which you will likely do to actual, genuine success (I almost feel bad for these people for having to deal with the Americans at TUJ. They in no way represent the average American. Congrats though). To anyone who wants to stay in Japan, Temple apparently helps you with your visa and applying to a Job, and that basically means you get to be put in posts about how a guy hired 0 out of 13 Media Graduates from Temple because they lacked basic knowledge and go home anyways.
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I kid about that last part, but I’d genuinely assume that most of the graduates end up working eikaiwa, regardless of what degree they graduated with. Most of them probably do it for an extended period, like WAY longer than need be. Maybe a few of them break out and do something computer related with an IT/CS degree, or marry some Haruka-chan that they met at TUJ and get a spouse visa so that they can work at some kaisha likely just filing spreadsheets like any other Japanese person, or occasionally doing translation for pennies on the dollar.
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For me, a dropout, I ended up going to the military to try and get a GI Bill to go back (would probably have been a mistake if I pulled through), but made the mistake of choosing an Intelligence job and failed mental illness screening to such a point where I’m being medically separated (with no benefits, too. Stay classy America!). That’s basically where it’s at right now.
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**THAT ENDS THE FIRST PART OF THIS LONG, LONG POST**
So with all of that out of the way to advise any youngster what TUJ is and what that “easy way” looks like, I do want to say that I love Japan. Everything I’ve done in my short adult life has been in pursuit of it, and in my eyes it is a burning passion to go to Japan and live a life where my finances are sorted and I’m generally doing OK without much worry. TUJ takes advantage of that, and a place like this provides major skepticism about whether or not taking the plunge is even the right choice, or a good choice by any regard. I’ll put it in short terms since you just read what is basically a short story, but my questions for anyone currently living in Japan are:
1. Did you plan on it? Was Japan your endgoal?
2. Do you regret it, or think you’d have done a better job if you didn’t move?
3. For those clean slate, “17 years old, don’t know anything, and want to move ASAP” people that occasionally come by, what steps should they take?
by shoppingcartracing