Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Going to College/ University overseas

This post I decided to tell you about college life in Tokyo.


I'm currently studying at Waseda University School of International Liberal Studies. Waseda is a private school with about 50,000 students graduate and undergraduate. Recently, starting with my department there has been an effort to offer classes in english. As a matter of fact, besides required Japanese language courses, all of my classes are in english. The quality of education is pretty good although the teachers implement a confucian style of teaching. This means that the student shuts up and listens to the wise elder to the degree of not pointing out mistakes. Tuition is around 15,000$ a year depending on the exchange rate, but many students from abroad receive scholarships. Students from around the world come here to get masters degrees and doctorates. Most of the foreign students are from other asian countries.

College life in Japan is only a little different from the states. Social life in Japan revolves around alcohol. The drinking age is 20 but if you have a college ID no bar will turn you down. People here tend to be pretty socially awkward so alcohol is almost like a pillar of social interaction that allows a temporary escape from the restraining social rules of politeness and rank. Most people join a club or circle (saakuru) which forms around a certain shared interest or hobby and then goes out drinking every time they finish that activity. Tennis circles are the most notorious for rampant alcoholism. I often wonder how a sport with such a demand for coordination ended up with such an alcoholic reputation.

That's all for now, I'll probably make a series of posts about college here so if you have anything you'd like to know leave a question in the comments section and I'll do my best to tell you about it.

22 comments:

  1. thanks for being my follower ....I'll sign just now!

    Your post is very interestin ..I'll read more carefully later on

    have a nice day..I'm leaving home

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  2. Private school...you're rich admit it :)

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  3. What about sluttiness of girls? Do they sleep around easily too?

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  4. very interesting, i never thought they drank as much as us, but college is college i guess haha

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  5. I like your blog and i like your photos!WOOOOOooooow:)

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  6. I have to agree about the photo taking ability.

    Do you take these yourself? because they are quite amazing.

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  7. Sounds like its an expensive way to get told stuff you know is wrong, nonetheless its still good to hear about life in japan

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  8. yep alcohol fixes all social problems :)

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  9. Shit I wanna go to school in Japan!!!

    Following and supporting

    http://jomak412.blogspot.com/

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  10. That looks like a beautiful school. I'm not sure if I could handle going to a school where the professors only lecture though, without much discussion

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  11. good luck at college,its hard out there

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  12. i think my university had a waseda exchange program, which i didn't bother taking advantage of (tuition credits wouldn't transfer). i would want to be in a sake saakuru. or uiido saakuru, but i hear that's looked down on whereas alcoholism is the norm.

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  13. Interesting I didn't know much about college life in Japan. Following you!

    http://mmomoose.blogspot.com/

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  14. that should be really fun! Good luck!

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  15. Konichiwa! I remember when I watched "Shogun", this TV series with Richard Chamberlain, I wrote down the Japanes words and learned them as good as I could :)

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  16. cool post, i always wondered what it would be like to study abroad. following

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  17. What's up, after reading this awesome piece of writing i am too cheerful to share my familiarity here with mates.

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    ReplyDelete