Are you interested in studying at Japanese universities? Do you want to learn about Japan’s university application and enrollment processes, as well as the types of programs on offer? This course will help you to both discover great programs offered by different Japanese universities and prepare a study plan through project-based learning. We introduce a number of options to match a variety of goals, from full degree to non-degree programs, programs taught in English, as well as short-term programs in Japan. During the course, international students at UTokyo will provide you with useful information and advice to start you on the path to studying in Japan. At the end of this course, you will produce a draft of your action plan for applying to Japanese universities. The overall goal of the course is to start you off on the right foot to a happy, productive and fulfilling student life in Japan!
Settling in Japan part 1
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From the course by The University of Tokyo
Studying at Japanese Universities
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From the lesson
Student Life in Japan
In this module, we will talk about various aspects of student life in Japan. Students at the University of Tokyo will share the experience of their first day in japan, how they settled in, and how they are enjoying campus life. You will have clearer image of how student life is like when you come to study in Japan.
Meet the Instructors
Yujin YaguchiProfessor
College of Arts and Sciences
Yuko ItatsuAssociate professor
College of Arts and Sciences
[MUSIC]
This unit is about student life in Japan.
Yujin, would you care to talk a little bit about the various issues that
we'll be covering?
>> Yes, student life is really important in order to make your academic life happy.
You need to have good student life.
And we will be talking about things like accommodation, tuition,
scholarship, immigration issues, and we believe the best way is to
have you listen to the actual voices with the students.
So, here they are, talking about various issues for you.
[MUSIC]
>> So, our next topic is about settling into Japan.
You've all talked about how you love being in Japan at the moment and
that you find it very rewarding.
>> Mm-hm. >> But
I'm guessing that it wasn't all smooth sailing from the get-go.
>> [LAUGH] >> So,
I wonder if you'd like to share your experiences with that.
Well, the first days I arrived to Japan, because maybe Tokyo is
one of the, maybe, most expensive cities in the world.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So I was comparing everything with my home town back to Iran, and
the prices, I was shocked.
I was disregarding about that I have scholarships and
I have Japanese Yen here with me, and maybe the first few weeks
I was not eating enough, and I [LAUGH] I lost a few weight.
But after that, I, yeah, I realized that, okay,
I have a scholarship, and so, I have to compare.
So, nowadays, when I go back to my home country, I compare prices, okay,
that's very cheap.
I compare the prices with Japan's.
[LAUGH] So it was my first experience something first problem.
Also, another problem I had was food.
>> Yeah.
>> At the beginning, Misoshiru, at first I was like, okay what's that?
And just what?
>> And there's pork stock in that.
You probably don't know that.
You didn't know that.
Man.
>> But now, after a while I liked it, and I do love it now.
I know it's healthy, and I cannot miss it with my meal.
>> Okay, wow!
>> So every time I go to Shokudo, okay, I have to get some misoshiru.
>> One of the biggest cultural shocks that you kind of have coming into Japan
is the, well there's a lot of queueing up, there's a lot of lines.
You're going to have to get used to that.
I am, unfortunately, a very impatient person, but Japan has kind of tempered.
First it tried, then it tempered my patience
in the sense that you're expected to queue up for a lot of things.
The day I got here, the day after I got here, actually,
I had to go register my address at the Taito Civil Office.
And that took the better part of eight hours.
The lines are insanely long at a lot of these things, especially,
if you're in Tokyo.
So get used to it.
Maybe bring a magazine, a book.
Everybody here is kind of like really,
they usually bring along some sort of electronic device.
A PSP, a Nintendo DS, it doesn't matter.
Even a book.
But just have something on you at all times because sometimes you'll have to
wait for prolonged durations of time in order to get something done.
And Japanese people are obsessed with lines.
If you make some people, when they see there is a line, they just go it.
They don't know what is there.
[LAUGH] There is something good for sure so they stay.
>> There is a line.
>> I think it was at a ramen shop in Ikebukuro and I was like, so, apparently,
there are a couple of really metropolitan young teenagers
in front of me in the line I was like, okay, so, what do they serve here?
And they're like, we don't know, we just saw a lot of people and
decided to step in line.
I was like, okay.
>> Another topic that I had is often times, along with these queues,
I started feeling that the Japanese people were very inefficient, in some sense.
Almost to the point where I started feeling superior.
And when I noticed this, of course, I felt really bad because you cannot feel that
when you don't completely understand the culture or anything.
For example, before you come to Japan,
you have to sign a lot of forms and you have to get everything in order.
You have to send it to the Japanese university and you get stuff back,
you have to sign it again.
Well, it's a lot of fun, for sure.
So, whenever you get accepted, you're like, yes, and you're going to Japan, your
big day with your flight, then you come to Japan and it just starts all over again.
There's so more forms you have to do, and at some point, I was like, please,
Japanese people, why don't you digitalize everything?
And I just have to write my name one time instead of on one form,
I have to write three times my name.
But Japanese people love forms.
That's what my Japanese friends told me.
So yeah, you have to take care of that.
>> There are a lot of paperworks, but here in Japan, it really works.
Maybe it took you one day, but it's all over.
>> Yeah.
>> In a sense, they are very efficient, actually, yeah.
Just take the amount of people that live in Tokyo all going to their work everyday.
Everything is organized.
Everything works out.
And that's, I think, pretty good from the Japanese people that fixed this.
And, for example, take that the train is well,
the trains, they run every three minutes and they really run every three minutes.
If you compare it to most countries around the world,
well, we all know that Japanese trains are supposed to be very good trains.
And it's true, the metro system in Tokyo, it's amazing.
It's infallible, basically.
[MUSIC]
>> I'm wondering about what issues you might have had or not had with language.
Did you know or did you study Japanese beforehand?
>> Just one word.
I didn't know any Japanese word.
I just, yeah, applied, came to Japan.
Maybe one month before coming, I just
started to learn Katakana, but it was not sufficient.
But the good point is that when you come, in most cases, they assign a tutor for
you, so the person who gets money from university to help you.
And maybe for one month, two months, they will help you with your things.
If you go to civil office, if you go to bank,
everywhere you have something to do and
you need Japanese, he or she will help you with that.
So it's a good point.
I don't know if in other countries they do the same but it's kind of
win-win for both sides for international students and for
Japanese students who want to- >> Earn some extra income on the side?
>> Yeah, STARA-plus- >> Tutor.
>> I also got assigned a tutor.
He came to the airport to pick me up the day I arrived.
He took me to school, he took me to my meetings, and
then he actually sent me off to my home where I was going to stay that night.
And I had no idea where I had to go or what I had to do.
And he just stick with me all day long and he said, okay, tomorrow,
you have to do this and this forms and this, and we should go there and there.
I was like, whoa, okay.
And he said, don't worry, I'll see you tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock,
at this station.
I was like, that's very, very useful.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Yeah, so I did have tutors helping me out when I first came as well.
Not just as on the living aspect, but also academic,
just figuring out the different subjects and improving my Japanese.
And right now, I am actually working as a tutor at the mobilization office as well.
So we actually would arrange for, because I kind of just feel like I want to
help the other international students to get through the procedure.
So we do help to arrange different events for international students, and
we're always there to help them with Japanese, or just science subjects, or
just anything that they feel worried in their daily life.
So, I would definitely recommend making use of all these resources, yeah.
>> So, maybe, the other thing that I just wanted to ask was,
when I was an international student, it was very easy for
me to feel isolated at the very beginning.
So, I know you've had tutors,
so I guess that's where you started building your network?
Can you talk a little bit about that experience?
How have you made social circles?
Or, how did you make social circles when you first arrived?
>> Okay, we had tutors helping us out, and then I have my other peers.
So, I would talk to the tutors and then I'd usually just tell them
about my interests and about the student associations or the organizations that
I'm interested in, and then they further connect me to their other friends.
Like let's say, a friend at the dance group and
that's how I get into a dance group.
So I think it's just, you start with what you have.
And then they kind of help you build up the network.
>> The atmosphere of our laboratory's very good.
We have half international students, half Japanese.
And therefore, Japanese students, they are quite outgoing and
they can express themselves out and truly friendly.
So, at first, once I came,
I heard from other people that it's difficult to get friends with Japanese,
but it was not difficult for me because of the atmosphere.
So, my tutor was very helpful, and also the other students,
one of them was a member of the Soccer Club and
he invited me a couple of times to play with them.
And it was a great experience playing soccer with Japanese people.
And, yeah, very good experience with that.
But the problem of mixing with Japanese students,
the systematic problem is that when you come here as international students,
they send you to international dormitories.
So all friends you have, they are your bunch of international students, so
the first circle that you can make is international students.
So if there are some dormitories that mix Japanese and
international students together,
it would be much easier to get to know each other and
get friends, not only with your lab members but also other people.
Maybe with your lab members, you do not share common interests.
>> Yeah.
>> If there are a lot of Japanese people around you, so
it's the more opportunity to make friends with common interests.
>> Yeah.
>> [MUSIC]
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