Ohayo Gozaimasu!!
Before you read this blog I need to ask you something,
your answer can be entered in the comments option at
the bottom of the blog.
Can you think of 3 things you would recommend making
my experience in Japan a more rewarding experience?
Or write about 3 things you wouldn't miss doing if you
were in Japan. Thanks.
Now let get started. Things at the Kansai Gaidai University are going well. I have not yet felt
or experience any cultural shock, nor I have lived or seen anything negative about the whole area
I live in. Getting around to and from school is quite easy as I ride my bicycle to school every
day, go groceries' shopping, etc.
To go everywhere else I do it by train, subway and it actually is becoming a routine of traveling
from 30 to 40 minutes in various trains every time you want to go somewhere nice, or the big
cities: Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, etc.
My schooling is pretty "time consuming" because the Japanese courses take a lot from the student's time.
Although I want to enjoy my experience and be out there rather than studying too hard, I feel
committed to do well in school. Especially when you know the culture is so different and you
don’t know when studying too much is too much because Japanese teachers have different expectations!!!
However, when I arrived to Japan I came with the idea of taking just 2 business courses and the required
Japanese class, but I ended up having to choose 5 classes because Kansai Gaidai requires students
to take 14 units in order to be registered; therefore, I had no other choice but to take the mandatory
Spoken Japanese class (5 units), another writing Japanese class and 3 business courses of 3 units each:
Human Resources in Japan, Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications, and last International
Negotiation: Resolving Conflict and closing the deal.
I hope I can still apply through my CSUSM School for the Credit/No Credit option for my Japanese courses,
since Kansai Gaidai does not offer that option, I have to do it through my home institution.
This is certainly a matter I want to take care of as soon as possible because I am staring to worry a
lot about the CR/NR deadlines. I definitely need to do my CR/NO CR for the Japanese courses so
I can focus on my whole experience and business classes rather than
learning fluent Japanese, which by the way is quite challenging. And the expectations from the teachers
are quite high as well since their teaching style and program is pretty demanding. In the Spoken Japanese
class we have about 2 quizzes a week add Homework everyday, adding lab practice as well. The writing class
is all about memorization of the writing characters or syllables system where we are learning all about
Hiragana, Katakana, and some Kanji. The good thing about this particular class is that you can choose
from 1 to 3 units, so I selected 1 unit class which last 5 weeks. Great 2 more weeks and I will be done
with that one, but I wish I could continue, after all, you learn a lot and it is very beneficial to the
reading of Japanese.
In regards with the business courses they are all very different. Certainly one business course
"Marketing and IMC" may seem easier than the others since I have taken so many marketing classes
before. All the teachers I have are American, so I am very used to their teaching styles and academic
standards, so in that sense nothing is different. It seems they all are pretty interested in letting us
experience and enjoy Japan, as they emphasize on that a lot. That is nice of them because it makes me
realize they really want us to take advantage of the whole opportunity, not just be inside doing homework.
The Human resources class is pretty cool, we are learning about Japan in specific but other countries'
information is as well shared by international students. So far we have studied the culture, education
system, Hofstedes Theory and now I am preparing for a presentation to discuss Wages in Japan and the whole
system of employment. The teacher makes the class pretty interactive and we learn from many other countries
HR maters and educational systems. As far as the Negotiation class, I LOVE IT!!! It is so great, we do lots
of practical "hands on negotiations" in which the teacher hands out assignments and we read our one side of
the negotiation's goal, and the other students reads the other side of the negotiation's goal, and we have
to prepare in 10 minutes, and then be ready to negotiate and close deals.
Last class I had to negotiate and the class were over and we were still
bargaining our prices down and negotiating, we stayed until we closed the deal.
I am really getting some new tools and learning from this class, and I really
would recommend it.
Overall Kansai Gaidai is a Language School and so is its main focus. That is why the language courses are
quite difficult, but I feel that in a way my business academic level is quite high in comparison to students
who may be taking business courses for the sake of it, but actually are not business majors.
You know me, I never stop thinking about Networking- I am trying to figure ways to expand my network, but
I haven't been able to think of any other thing that trying to organize some sort of global business meetings
so we can learn from other countries business practices outside classrooms hours. I just hope people are interested
so we really can come to an arrangement for networking, maybe even with professors, etc. The class hour goes by so
quickly than I sometime wish the classes were longer so I could interact more with the classmates. Some teachers
offer some business presentations once in a while outside campus, I will definitely shoot for that as well.
Thanks for reading my blog!!!
