A Semester Abroad at Nagoya University

Field report - A semester abroad at Nagoya University Geography Aspired degree: Bachelor of Science Japan October 2017 – February 2018 Nagoya University Jp-2017-8ZIJ3-w 1. Motivation From October 2017 until the end of January 2018, I had the opportunity to experience an international exchange to our partner university in Nagoya, Japan. My semester at Nagoya University was great, so I would like to recommend everybody from Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg who intends to spend a semester abroad in Japan to come to Nagoya. To give future exchange students a better idea of what a semester at Nagoya University can look like, I hope to provide some helpful information in the following. Because I’ve always been interested in Japan’s culture ever since I was a teenager and it was my dream to come to Japan ever since, when I decided to include a semester abroad in my studies, it was clear to me that my target country would be Japan. Not only have I been interested and fascinated by the differences in culture, but I’ve also studied the language since I was 16 years old; first on a autonomous basis, then in a private class and finally for the last two years in the Japanese classes of the SLI (Sprachlehrinstitut, institute for languages) of the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg. Finally, as a Geography student, it became more and more fascinating for me to find out about the differences between geoscientific processes in Europe that I got to know during my first four semesters of studies and the very different processes in Japan, an island with a completely different set of geologic, tectonic, climatologic, and geographic characteristics. I strongly encourage every student whose major is connected to some kind of geoscience to come to Japan, as there are truly amazing differences which make it a joy to find out about your surroundings from an academic viewpoint! My reasons to choose Nagoya University as first priority rather than Tokyo, Kyoto or Matsuyama was that it’s size was right in the middle of the other cities and I guessed it would not be as touristy, but more classical Japanese than Tokyo and Kyoto, while still being more international than Matsuyama; that I read about a great and welcoming atmosphere for international students; and that Nagoya is located right in the center of Japan, making it a perfect starting point for journeys in all directions; additionally, Nagoya University was the only partner university which offered classes in English that are related to my major and gave appropriate information about these classes. It turned out to be the perfect location for my semester abroad, and all my thoughts got confirmed. I will explain the reasons why further below. 2. Preparations in Germany 2.1 Decision, application and money matters After making up my mind that a semester in Japan was definitely what I sought to do, the application process started. It was a longlasting process that took about 9 months and during which all interested students needed to gather multiple documents and to take part in a number of tests, such as an English language test, a health check at the doctor’s (which cost ≤ 10 Euros), and for those who want to apply for a scholarship also a considerably demanding application for the scholarship of desire. Here, I would like to point out that for the English test, it depends on 1. the scholarship you seek to receive and 2. the university you intend to go to, whether or not it is necessary to participate in the expensive TOEFL language test (>100 euros). In my case, as I applied for the Baden-Württemberg Stipendium and Nagoya University, I didn’t need to do the TOEFL test, but could take part in the 30 minutes face to face test with a lecturer from the seminar of Anglistics of Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, which only cost me maybe 20 Euros (exact amount unclear). This test is called the “DAAD English language certificate”. Further information can be found here: https://www.sli.uni-freiburg.de/englisch/tests/daad Please be sure to apply for an appointment for this test in time! I almost didn’t get an appointment anymore due to clashing timetables with my major’s exams, as the appointments are booked out quite a long time in advance already. So please, be prepared. The same is valid for the TOEFL test. For the scholarship, it can be quite confusing to figure out which ones to apply for, but again, I encourage everybody to try and apply for at least one, as almost everybody I know who applied for a scholarship also got one. I was a little bit disappointed when I found out that the DAAD scholarship is not applicable for students who will only spend one semester abroad – it requires to spend a full year in the guest country – because I found out that the DAAD scholarship actually pays a bigger amount of money to its recipients than other scholarships. But as for me, a stay of a full year was out of the question, I applied for the Baden-Württemberg scholarship instead and was so lucky to be granted the scholarship in the end. For Japan, there is a set amount of money of 600 Euros per month. Another positive point about money matters is that if your host university in Japan regards you to be a student worth supporting, they will automatically hand in an application for a Japanese scholarship named JASSO for you, which you cannot apply for yourself as an individual. In my case, I got both the Baden-Württemberg and the JASSO scholarship this way, which don’t exclude each other due to the fact that they both are worth exactly 600 Euros/month, which is the uppermost amount of money one can receive from another scholarship in order to be applicable for each of these scholarships. Furthermore, please also apply for “Auslands-BaföG” - this doesn’t count as a scholarship, as you have to pay half of it back after finishing your studies, and can be quite a high amount of money, too, even if you’re already receiving to scholarships. My life here in Japan was very convenient due to these three sources of income, and as life isn’t cheap in Japan, please be sure to apply for as many scholarships as possible. Furthermore, it was a very longlasting process from the first application for the Baden-Württemberg scholarship until the final decision, and also the application for Nagoya University itself took a very long time until I was finally granted a spot. What worried me the most after being accepted to Nagoya University was the question whether I would also be granted a room in one of the three student residences: After first stating that every exchange student of Nagoya University, there would be a room granted, halfway through the application process we received an email that somehow there were too many students accepted and therefore a spot in one of the dormitories couldn’t be guaranteed anymore. But in the end, everybody got a room, so don’t worry about this neither! I got the feeling that in Nagoya University, everybody cares a lot about their international exchange students. Documents that needed to be handed in for the application in the International Office itself were for example a letter of motivation, a CV, a transcript of academic records at university and from high school/Gymnasium, and a proof of immatriculation. I want to emphasize that with any question I had, the kind people from International Office were very happy to help me very quickly and effectively, so don’t hesitate to ask once more. For being able to enter Japan, you furthermore need to apply for a student visa at the Japanese consulate in Germany. For people with domicile in Baden-Württemberg, unluckily, you need to either send your application with your original passport (!) via post or bring it there personally, and then get your passport and visa personally in Munich, although it is another Bundesland. It took me a whole day of transport back and forth to get it, so please plan ahead once more. There are many other documents to be filled out and sent in, but attending the consultations and information sessions offered by the International Office provides you with all the important information. As a last tip, be sure to write a detailed application for the Baden-Württemberg scholarship and feed it with as many reasons for academical and personal connections to/ interests in Japan and the city of your host University, as well as why you want to get to that University itself! Besides all this, you also need to book a flight to and back from Japan for yourself. While the proof of a flight to Japan is required for the application, the flight back can be left open. I will come back to some tips about the flight later, but what I can already say now is that I advise you to check for the prices on the internet and not only ask for offerings at the travel agency, as in my case, their prices were much higher than the ones online. Another experience I want to share is about the decision whether or not to go for an exchange while being in a relationship. I was struggling with the question of going for one or two semesters or not going at all for a long time, as I have a partner in Germany and was worried about how the long time seperate might influence our relationship.

Load more