Sophia and other Tokyo universities

[ibiza]

I spent a year in Japan last year after I graduated highschool, and I'm ready to do it again. I'm a freshman at an unknown college in Colorado, and looking to transfer to any college that offers an excellent study abroad program.

Colorado University offers a program that lets one study for one year at Sophia university. Sounds nice, but it's a Catholic school. I'm not a fan of Christianity, so I don't think I could stomache a year of prayer.

CU also offers a year of study at Kansai Gaidai University, which sits inbetween Kyoto and Osaka. Sounds nice, but I'd really like to be IN Tokyo. Or at least IN Osaka.

Anyone know of any good universities in the US that offer study abroad programs for Japanese universities in Tokyo or Osaka?

[devicenull]

[tarepanda]

hi!

This is my first post, but I just thought I'd share my opinion. I actually graduated from the university of wisconsin-madison (http://www.wisc.edu) earlier this year.

device is right, they have an outstanding Japanese program, though that was in large part due to a professor who retired last year. The program is very competitive - third and fourth year classes generally only have 8 or 9 students, which is exceedingly rare for a university with 45,000+ students (I've had countless classes with more than 300 enrolled students at a time). First and second year are easier; generally there are about 45 students in the first class, which quickly whittles its way down to the numbers i mentioned above.

There is also a less rigorous "non-major" japanese course of study offered, however, it is not advised if you are seriously planning on making Japan any part of your future.

Classes for the first two years are 6 (yeah, six!) credits each, and require a sizeable investment on your part. You have class for 8 or 9 hours a week, with lots of quizzes, tests and homework to go with it.

You need to have completed at least two years of japanese language study (24 credits) before you can realistically hope to participate in the exchange programs.

I forget, however, I know that there are exchange programs with at least Keio, Sophia (Jyochi) and some university in Nagasaki. There might be one more, i forget. If you search on the wisc website you can find out more information. As I recall, there are only about 1~2 slots open per university, and competition is tight. Somehow the university has managed to lay its hands on at least one monbusho scholarship per year - competition for that is tight, as you can imagine, but if you can get it, you're more than set. My friend managed to snag one a few years ago and studied at Keio for a year. Lucky bastard.

Of course your financial aid will apply to your tuition and fees/etc. but as you can imagine schools in Tokyo are hell of expensive, especially since Keio and Sophia are private. Make sure you're financially prepared! As an aside, the financial aid dept in madison has always been very generous as far as I've known, so this may or may not be a problem.

A few more notes:
there is a very nice, but small, japanese population in madison with which to interact. Moreover, there is a small language academy located close by which is very popular with japanese students studying in america - they are an excellent source of conversation partners, though the competition for them is fierce.

all the T.A.s for the japanese program are Japanese-native linguistics majors (graduate students). They are very knowledgeable and some of the highest quality T.A.s I've ever had in the school, which is great, because they are most responsible for your japanese language education until the 3rd and 4th years.

There is a "technical japanese" series of classes taught through the engineering department at the school which I highly recommend if you're interested. Though geared mainly at engineers (it is a certificate program and it can be difficult to convince them to grant you the certification unless you're an engineer as this is the only japanese program outside the control of the E.Asian department) it is incredibly helpful and will really boost your kanji recognition skills. At 3 credits a pop, these classes are a bargain, especially since the university is one of the only places in the entire country which teaches such a course.

Finally, don't be so quick to dismiss Sophia. My girlfriend graduated from Sophia, and she never really had religion "forced on her" at the school. The only time religion really came into play was the fact that she lived in an all-girls dormitory owned by the school and run by *urk* catholic nuns. (one of my favorite quotes from them being "all men are hungry wolves" eep!!). She had a curfew, and the dorm was barricaded like it was expecting world war III (obviously no men allowed even remotely near it) and they did have to clean and do morning prayer, but I seriously doubt that they will make gaijin do this. Furthermore, as I said, this is because she chose (well, her parents chose) to live in a dorm run by nuns - if you choose to live outside of the dormitory, I doubt you'll ever even know you were attending a catholic university. Furthermore, as I recall, sophia has a rather separate 'japanese' and 'foreigners' campus, with rather distinctive atmospheres; this might be a plus or not, depending on how willing you are to go out of your way to be treated like a japanese, with all it's associated trappings. And if I may be chauvinistic for a second (and assuming you're male) sophia girls have a reputation for being intelligent, beautiful, internationally minded and very good at foreign languages - a vast majority of them speak excellent english and many speak other languages as well. Thus, if you're willing to put a little effort into it, it should be very easy to meet Japanese people interested in interacting with foreigners.

Furthermore, the campus is located in a very convenient part of Tokyo (yotsuya, I think...) smack dab in the heart of the city, right on the chou line and about 3 stops from shinjuku. It's a quiet area, but has easy access to all the "big" attractions. Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm hyping Sophia or anything (for example, Keio is a much better choice anyday, if you can cut it) but I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea.

Wow! I've been rambling on forever. I hope this helps!

[Taro Toporific]

...one study for one year at Sophia university. Sounds nice, but it's a Catholic school. I'm not a fan of Christianity, so I don't think I could stomache a year of prayer.

Jesus H. Buddha! This is Japan...the world's most unreligious country.

Sophia University does not have forced prayer and 99.99999% of the students studying there have NEGATIVE knowledge of any religion besides power shopping. Personally, I would go to Keio or Waseda and study a regular topic like CS, engineering, etc., if money was not a problem.

ICUhas one of the most hardcore language programs (not the silly summer program for braindead otaku) Such programs could be useful IF you want to consider SERIOUS Japanese studying (your asian classmates will be G-O-O-D at Japanese and kanji). Otherwise any regional college, let's say Kochi Daigaku in my case, far away from other English speakers would be the best total-immersion program for you.

Check out:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Japanese/Studyabroad/studyabroad.html