Field report - A semester abroad at University

Geography Aspired degree: Bachelor of Science 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. This is very individual of course. In my case however, I decided to “only” go for half a year for the sake of my relationship, and for a long time, I was very unsure whether I would regret that I was not going to be here for a full year. From my viewpoint now however, this was the best decision, and I don’t have the feeling that one semester was too short to get a great insight and have a real new life in Japan. At the same time, it was short enough to maintain a good relationship to my partner with regular contact. For me personally, one more semester though would have been tough, as once experiences so much without each other and this produces feelings of distance. I am very glad that I didn’t give up my dream of coming to Japan due to my good relationship though, and I am sure that other couples can challenge this, too.

2.2 Health Insurance

Another thing to be organized is a health insurance for your time in Japan. Once your application has been approved, you can start thinking about whether you would like to get a German health insurance. Nagoya University requires all students to sign up for a Japanese student health insurance no matter whether you already have one from back home though, but this Japanese insurance only covers 70% of the expenses should the need of a hospital or clinic visit arise. On the other hand, the insurance is fairly cheap (about 25 Euros for a full year, even less for half a year). You don’t have to apply or prepare anything for the Japanese insurance in Germany. Everything will be organized and prepared for you when you are in Nagoya, and you will get help in filling in the all Japanese (!) application forms not only for the health insurance during the first two weeks. I decided to additionally get a German insurance for my stay that guaranteed transportation back to Germany in case of injury/sickness and covered all expenses to 100%. Furthermore, you can get additional insurances as coverage for liability, for damage of household goods due to fire, water, flood etc. and for theft for an equally cheap price (15 Euros for one year) by the Nagoya University insurance. I decided to do this, too, so I was fully covered and had nothing to worry about.

3. Arrival in Japan 3.1 Way to the dormitories and moving in

When arriving in Nagoya, besides the great and surreal feeling of being in Japan finally, what struck me first was: Everything is in Japanese in Japan. Really! From official documents that you need to fill in to menus at many restaurants; you can also hardly find any English explanations even in public places such as ward offices (Bürgeramt) or places called something with “international” in their name, and it can be very hard sometimes to find somebody who understands English at all. Although I had studied Japanese for two years on a weekly basis before first coming here, I was hardly able to understand anything on the first two days by being overstruck by all the new impressions.

The contrast between Japan and other countries that I travelled to before concerning the common level of English became obvious already in the hostel that I stayed at during the first night: Not even the staff at the hostel desk, right in the center of Nagoya, spoke English and needed my tandem partner's translation, so I was lucky that he had picked me up from the airport and accompanied me. This is the normal case in Japan, I can't say it often enough; even the members of the student group ACE, the student group of Nagoya University which designated themselves to be the helpful right hand for all of us international students, hardly includes people with what we regard as the normal level of English speaking standard in Germany. But still, most people are trying their best to understand and help wherever they can, and there were so many people here with me this semester that did not speak a single word of Japanese in the beginning, and they've all enjoyed their time very much anyways. So, of course, it is easier if you studied Japanese before, but you will still somehow survive if you haven't.

Still, I would like to advise everybody who plans to come to Japan for a semester or two abroad to study Japanese as long as possible before coming here! I have the impression that even though the people who didn't / still don't really speak Japanese in the beginning enjoyed their time not less than those with Japanese preknowledge, they certainly mostly just hung out with other international students. They hardly made any Japanese friends, which is of course hard to do when both parties don't speak each other’s language and the Japanese cannot communicate in English properly neither. In order to get a more lively insight into Japan's people, I therefore think it is best to take as many Japanese classes as possible before coming here; for example, there are Japanese classes offered by the SLI (Sprachlehrinstitut) of Freiburg University, which are quite cheap compared to other courses and which I can recommend.

Note that there might not be an airport pickup from the university itself provided depending on the time at which you arrive (which of course cannot be expected, as there were about 160 students arriving at different times within two days). However, I heard about some students who arrived at a more convenient time during the day than me (my flight didn’t arrive in Nagoya before 9pm) that said they had been picked up by members of ACE! Thus, please make sure to be prepared to find your way to the dormitories somehow even in case you will not be picked up by anybody.

From the Chu-Bu Centrair International Airport Nagoya, it takes about one to one and a half hours by subway to the international residences. If you’re challenging the way to the dormitory (where you are required to go through the arrival procedures with the help of the kind ACE members), check for the connections and route of the subways on google maps. This has proven to be the easiest way to find out about where to get on, change and get off. And, amazingly, the Japanese trains are almost always on time! Another comforting thing: The subways run at least every 10 minutes, so no need to worry if you missed one of them. Just make sure you aren’t stranded in the middle of the night, as the Japanese public transportation is not running at night after around past 12 at midnight until around 5am.

For the way to the dormitories, a short guide to riding the subway in Japan: After entering the closest subway entrance, you will find yourself standing in front of a number of ticket gates. In order to pass these, you need to purchase a ticket in advance. There are ticket machines close to the ticket gates in every station, and luckily, they are labeled as such in English, too! You can either buy a single ride ticket – you can change the vending machine’s language setting to English, by the way – or purchase an “IC card”, a certain prepaid card (“Manaca card” in Nagoya; “ card” in Tokyo) that can then be charged at any subway station throughout Japan. These prepaid cards don't have the same function as the German “Regiokarte” such as to come in cheaper than paying every ride single, as one still gets charged the same amount of money for every ride with the prepaid card. I still recommend to get one though, because it is much quicker to just touch the receptor of the ticket gates at the subway entrance with your card instead of going through the one way ticket purchase menu all the time and paying it seperate. What surprised all us international students and should be kept in mind is that in Japan, you will need your ticket once BEFORE and once AFTER the ride, so don’t throw it away! In order to leave the subway station at the desired destination, you have to once more feed the ticket machines with your ticket, no matter whether you traveled with an IC (manaca/suica) card or a single ride paper ticket.

Check the following link for an explanation how to purchase a manaca card or the single ride tickets, and how to pass the ticket gates at every subway station: http://www.nagoya-info.jp/en/access/getting_around_nagoya/subway.html

For the decision of which date to fly to Japan, it might come in handy to know that the moving in times designated by Nagoya University were just until 3pm on two designated moving in days. As my flight didn't arrive in Nagoya before 9pm, I needed to book an accommodation to stay at during the first night. Also, because there were two consecutive days for everybody to move into the dormitories, my late arrival made me change my flight date to one day earlier, as I wanted to move in on the first day available. This turned out to be a very good decision, as I got to know everybody that moved into the dormitory right away while there were not settled groups yet; although it seems unbelievable, I already got into a set group of friends on the very first day, who are now still my best friends here! With these people, I spent the most time in my semester abroad, and it was like that with the most people. Therefore, I recommend everybody to check for when their flight arrives and, if necessary, to fly to Japan one day in advance to move in on the first day available, if somehow possible.

When you’ve finally made it to the dormitory that you will live in, there are some first procedures that you will be guided through by the ACE students. It would be helpful to have a katakana table ready for this, as you will be required to write your name in katakana a couple of times. Again, it also is very useful to understand a basic set of Japanese, as most ACE members don’t speak English. A dictionary can also help you out to communicate in the very start. The ACE members also guide you in small groups with the other international students to your very own rooms and explain about how to use the kitchen area, the air conditioner (which is used as cooler and heater in Japan), bathroom facilities and so on. You will also receive a big load of guides that you should read through that explain about where to find the closest supermarket, how to sort your garbage in Japan and many other things.

3.2 The student dormitories

There are three different student dormitories that you will be sorted into by chance: International Residence Higashiyama, Ohmeikan or Yamate, the latter being subdivided into Yamate North and South. You cannot give priorities where you want to live, so just wait until you get told where you will live. The difference between the three dormitories is their age – Higashiyama being the oldest, Ohmeikan the middle and Yamate the newest residence – and therefore their level of luxury, earthquake security and price. While at Ohmeikan, the rooms don’t include a private kitchenspace (there are community kitchens on each floor), Yamate North and Higashiyama rooms all include a private kitchen space right in the entrance way of your room. Except for Yamate South, all residences have private bathrooms included in your room! Additionally, Ohmeikan is the only residence that also houses Japanese students and not only internationals.

The prices for each of the dormitories were the following: Yamate North: 28,000¥ room charge + ca. 10,000¥ for electricity, gas and water, depending on usage (ca. 207€ + 74€), internet access 2,200¥ per month (16,30€) Yamate South: 22,000¥ room charge + ca. 10,000¥ for electricity, gas and water, depending on usage (ca. 163€ + 74€), free internet access provided Ohmeikan: 12,300¥ room charge + ca. 10,000¥ for electricity, gas and water, depending on usage (ca. 91€ + 74€), internet access 3,000-4,500¥ per month (22-33€) Higashiyama: 11,420¥ room charge + ca. 10,000¥ for electricity, gas and water, depending on usage (ca. 85€ + 74€), free internet access provided

While the older residences Yamate South and Higashiyama are cheaper to live in, they also come with free internet access provided in each room. Unfortunately, if you live in Yamate North or Ohmeikan, you will have to subscribe for internet access for additional expenses. In Ohmeikan however, the necessary hardware as a modem or LAN cable are provided for you if you subscribe. On the contrary, in Yamate North, you don’t get a wireless LAN modem or anything. You will have to buy that yourself, too, if you want to enjoy wifi in your room in Yamate North; a modem can be bought for example at the electronics store “Edion” for around 5,400¥ (40€). Some people decided to buy a more expensive SIM card contract that comes with more highspeed internet data and hot spotted their own laptops in their rooms when needed, which is the other opportunity next to getting an internet modem. You can also choose to not get an own internet connection for your room in Yamate North. There is free internet connection in a small community room that you may use. The problem about this is that the internet gets turned off from 10pm-8:30am every day, and many times, the internet didn’t work when we needed it, either due to too many people using it or out of unknown reasons, leading to much frustration. From my experience, you won’t have a lot of time to for example skype/facetime with your family and friends before nighttime very often, so these usage hours are very unhandy. Especially since the time difference to Germany is +7 hours in summer or even +8 hours in winter time (f.e. it is 10pm in Japan when it is only 2pm in Germany in winter), it is already hard enough to find times to speak to your dear ones back home, so nobody I know did not either subscribe to the internet provision or get the highspeed phone data.

I was sorted into the most expensive residence Yamate North. At first, I was a little bit sad about this, as I worried about the money and didn’t quite get along with the thought that I had to pay double as the other residences while being in the least convenient dormitory regarding the internet access. Besides, I thought I’d rather live in a dormitory where there are also Japanese students than just internationals to get into touch with more locals. But in the aftermath, I’m actually very happy that I was put into Yamate North. I visited my friends in the other dormitories and it is definitely visible that these buildings are much, much older. Especially, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss my kitchen space, as I really enjoy cooking and provided my own food every morning and most evenings, and at least at 50% of the lunch times, too. The pro side of an own kitchen space obviously is that when you keep it clean, it will be clean when you come back for it the next time. On the other hand, in a shared kitchen area, you can cook together with friends and do dinner parties etc., so every solution somehow has it’s positive side!

What I really didn’t like about Yamate North were the rules that 1. you cannot bring any guests into the residence who don’t live in it themselves, and 2. girls are not allowed to enter the men’s living floors, and men are not allowed to go onto the women’s floors! At first, this wasn’t a real problem, as nobody had big friends yet, so of course also not the wish to hang out with them after the working day in a nice relaxed atmosphere in one of your own rooms. But after we all made friends from other residences or the other gender, these rules really got annoying. While in Ohmeikan and Higashiyama residences, everbody brought in friends regardless of their residence or gender and it wasn’t a problem at all (although officially it isn’t allowed there neither), in Yamate North, they are really strict about it. There are even supervision cameras installed in all women’s floors (not in the guy’s floors though) and in the hallways which lead to screens in the Yamate office – in this office, there is a person in charge from 8:30am-10pm every day, also on weekends and holidays. Generally, this is very handy, because most of the office staff is super friendly and helpful, and they all speak a certain level of English; one lady even speaks German, another one is learning Spanish, etc.. But it is quite troublesome when you would like to hang out with friends in their rooms.

We found out that after 10pm, nobody cares anymore whether you visit your friends in their rooms on the boy’s or girl’s floor. You should keep your visits after 10pm for this reason and meet outside of the dormitories or in the community room before that, although the community room is really small and has nothing to offer except for tables and chairs in Yamate North. People from Ohmeikan residence can look forward to a great and vast community room with couches, flat screen TV, ping pong table and more. Good news for Yamate residents: As Ohmeikan and Yamate residences lie directly next to each other (30 seconds by foot) and it is allowed for Yamate students to enter the Ohmeikan lobby, you can also enjoy hanging out in there with your friends! It is not allowed for Ohmeikan students to enter Yamate however, but once more, there is nothing cool in the Yamate community room anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.

There are common use laundry washing machines in Yamate North on the first floor for the men and on the third floor for women that you can use. Washing one load costs 100 Yen (about 70 to 75 cents). There are also dryers available for the same price. You need to buy your own washing detergent and softener though.

3.3 Yamate North Rooms

All residences have roughly the same type of room which only slightly differ from which facilities they include. The Yamate North rooms com with a big desk with two drawers, a desk light, a chair, an air conditioner, a comfortable singlebed, an open space to hang your clothes, a really big and convenient cupboard for even more clothes and miscallenous items, a kitchen area and a bathroom. About the bed: Covers, sheets and a cushion are provided, and there is a monthly service to exchange and wash your bedsheets and the sheets in which you wrap the blanket and cushion. Yet, the cushion provided is only a pretty hard one filled with cherry stones! You might do well in bringing your own pillow additionally from home, as everybody here who didn’t bring one eventually bought a cushion here.

The kitchen area is really small, and only has one cooking plate and no space to prepare your food at; you need to cut your food and prepare everything on the desk that you also study on, which is a little bit inconvenient, but more than possible as I found out. The cooking plate also is only for IH pots and pans and cannot be used with conventional pans/pots. There is a sink next to the cooking plate, and a good sized fridge with freezer compartment. You also have a microwave. Here comes a very important information, there are NO kitchen utensils provided at all. When you will first move in, there won’t be a single cup, fork, knive, pot or anything else in your room and you will have to buy it all yourself! I think this is a bad solution, as every semester, every student buys everything and in the ends probably can’t take everything back home anymore, but is not allowed to leave anyhting in the room for the next person to move in. But there is a cupboard built up in the hallway where people can put things that they don’t need any more for others to take for free, and especially during the moving out/in season, there will be many useful things put there. But also throughout the semester, there might be cool stuff, so be sure to check for it when walking by. For the kitchenware I advise you to buy a small but convenient set of utensils in Seria, a good quality 100-Yen shop that REALLY sells all they have for only 100 Yen (with tax, 108 Yen, = 80 cents)! They practically sell everything there, even single spoons, knives, forks, cups and plates, but also pots etc; again, take care to only buy declared IH cooking ware for your cooking plate. The nice students of ACE will take you to a shopping mall at Yagoto station on the first or second day after arrival in a community first shopping trip and show this Seria store and a supermarket to you.

The bathroom is small, but convenient: You have two towel racks, a toilet, a mirror with a tray, a bathtub with integrated shower and shower curtain. Be sure to always keep the ventilation system of the bathroom on, 24 hours a day, so that there is no mold formation.

On the day of arrival, you will get one roll of toilet paper and one garbage bag of each of the three different available ones in Japan (burnable, recycling and metal ware). After you used these items up, you need to provide your own ones. I advise you to only buy the red burnable and blue recycling trash bags though; after 4 months, me and my friends still haven’t used our green metal ware trash bag, and we all bought an additionall trash bag roll for it that now lies around uselessly.

And, although in the beginning I had the feeling my room was quite small, compared to the student dorms in Tokyo however, our rooms here in Nagoya are huge and spacious! I know that because I visited a friend who is spending a year abroad in Tokyo at the moment.

4. The first days in Nagoya

There are many things to be organized and even more papers to be filled in during the first two weeks after you moved in, but luckily, Nagoya University provides great help with all that so that you can’t really do anything wrong. What was really great, too, was that there are two full weeks in between you moving in and the university classes getting started. That way, we really had enough time to plan which courses we wanted to take part in and get ready for our semester abroad.

In these two weeks, you will follow an already set schedule that provides you with information about where to be for which compulsory paperwork session. The weekends are always free though, so you can already go and explore the surroundings or even go on weekend trips with your new friends. Things you will have to do are for example to fill in the documents to apply for the obligatory health insurance or for JASSO scholarship recipients for their bank account – students who don’t receive JASSO won’t get help to open a Japanese bank account, but I think you really don’t need one if you don’t get JASSO anyways. I only used this bank account to withdraw my scholarship money, as it costs a fee everytime you take money out. You will probably be better off using your credit card account or even your German Girokonto EC card; make sure to contact your bank to ask whether it is possible to activate your EC card for usage in Japan. I am a member of Sparkasse Freiburg Nördlicher Breisgau and I could withdraw money without additional charge directly from my German bank account in any Seven Eleven or Family Mart kombini (=convenience stores that can be found at every second corner in Japan). Having a credit card is very handy in Japan I think not only because they are safe to withdraw money with in kombinis, but also because you can let the internet, gas and SIM card providers allow to automatically charge your credit card so that you won’t have to worry about paying the bills in time each month. For people whose EC cards can possibly not be used to withdraw money it is anyways the only possibility to get money in Japan. If you don’t have a credit card yet, apply as early as possible for one, as it takes a while until you get one. If you already have one, make sure it is valid long enough throughout your stay in Japan, and if necessary, apply for a new card. Despite of that, in the everyday life in Japan, you mainly pay by cash and many places don’t accept credit card. But then, the next kombini isn’t far.

On the day that you move in, you will be welcomed and shown the way to your dormitory and room by the already mentioned friendly students of ACE. They will need you to write your name in katakana, so prepare a photo or paper slip to copy from if you don’t know the katakana system yet. They will provide you with some guides that you should read through; they include information about the facilities in your room and the residence, maps of the campus and its surroundings, emergency numbers, axplanations about the garbage sorting system and so on. More exciting is that you also get your schedule for the first week that exactly states when you have to be where for which event. The coolest thing about these events and sessions is that you will be together with all the other NUPACE students and therefore have the opportunity to meet countless new friends! Also, you will get explained how to pick your classes for the semester, how to enroll for them, the grading system and many other things about university life. You will be told in which school of affiliation (= Fakultät) you are – attention, this might not at all be connected to your major in Germany. For example, I was put into the School of Humanities although I study Geography B.Sc. in Germany. But this doesn’t mean that you cannot enrol for scientific subjects, so don’t worry.

On the day after you moved in, there is the free to join shopping event with ACE that is mentioned above and where you will get to know the closest supermarkets. Supermarkets don’t only offer a much bigger variety of groceries than kombinis, but also are considerably cheaper, so it is good to know where they are. In a normal kombini, you mainly get prepared foods such as bentos (for around 400-600 yen), instant noodles, onigiris (=rice balls filled with fish, around 100 yen), drinks, and sweets/snacks, but also milk, yogurt, bananas and onions. More fresh foods or advanced items like stock, granola etc. however can only be found in supermarkets. The kombinis also sell a basic assortment of stationary, electronical chargers etc., magazines and so on. The kombinis are a suprisingly big part of the modern Japanese everyday life and you will probably go there more often than you think – you can even pay your bills there!

Next to the paperwork, in the following couple of days, you will also have more opportunities to get to know your fellow NUPACE students and more Japanese students during various welcome parties, dinner events or other happenings organized by ACE. I can highly recommend these activities for finding friends from all over the world! Generally, I can say that I felt so warmly welcomed in Nagoya by ACE, but also by everybody else, from the NUPACE staff over the teachers to the office people from my residence. In Nagoya University, there is a strong and good carried out will to include and help international students, which can be seen in the good organization of your whole stay, the quick and effective helpfulness of every person in charge and the fact that there are diverse student groups to help and include all internationals; next to ACE, there is also the Help Desk in the NUPACE office building, whose aim it is to answer your questions during the whole semester. If you have any problem or question that doesn’t have to do with your exchange or university life directly (in this case, the NUPACE office is responsible), you can always go to the Help Desk, which will be open on most afternoons. I found a good friend by asking for help at the Help Desk. Actually, I read about the good community in Nagoya University myself in another report of a former exchange student, and this was one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Nagoya. I can really confirm their opinion that one feels very well taken care of in Nagoya!

Another thing that you might need to organize in the beginning is for example getting a Japanese SIM card for your phone. The university has special plans to offer to its students, but we compared their prices and offers with the ones of the phone company Docomo in the AEON mall at Yagoto station (the mall to which you will be taken by ACE for your first shopping trip), and their offers were much better. I got a SIM card with 4 GB of highspeed internet data and possibility to send and receive SMS (in case I wouldn’t have internet connection once; this however wasn’t needed, as even in the subway, you can operate with data roaming), but without the possibility to make or receive calls. Calling costs more and I was okay with only skyping, so I didn’t need this. This contract cost me 1500 Yen including tax (= 11 Euros) per month. In the aftermath, it would have been sufficient to take 2 GB only when getting internet connection for your room, as there is wifi in many places around the campus and even if you used up 2 GBs, you can still surf in the internet, just a little less fast.

5. The campus

The campus of Nagoya University is a quite big area of the city and even has its own subway station, called “Nagoya Daigaku” (= Nagoya University). This station is the closest to the residence Higashiyama, closer to Ohmeikan and Yamate is the station Yagoto Nisseki. On campus, you will find not only the buildings of the different schools and the rooms in which you will study, but also several cafés, student cafeterias, a library, books stores and kombinis, a basic gym, a newly opened swimming pool (both for free for students) and even a travel agency. To give you an impression of the size of the campus: From one end to the other, it takes about 15 minutes by foot.

In the cafeterias, you can get delicious food for between 350-650 Yen (= 2,60 – 4,80 Euros) depending on what you eat and how much you need to be full. I usually paid around 450-600 Yen. Many students ate pretty much all their meals in the cafeterias, as the quality is really good and everything is tasty! But unfortunately for me, pretty much every dish includes meat or fish. Even if you don’t expect it, there is usually at least fish sauce or powder in it. That is a fact about the whole of Japan; if it doesn’t say it’s vegetarian, it typically includes meat/fish. As I am a vegetarian in Germany, that is quite inconvenient for me and I cooked around 50% of my lunch dishes at home, so I could cook vegetarian. The other 50% I ate nonvegetarian foods in the cafeteria. For all vegetarians and vegans that intend to come to Japan, it is really not easy to eat out in Japan without meat/fish or other animal products. The traditional Japanese kitchen is full of these, and mainly the only vegetarian dish (or that I think are vegetarian, unless the stock again has fish powder in it of which I didn’t know) that I know of in the cafeterias were simple noodles with sauce or in an easy soup. Please prepare yourself to either cook all your meals yourself and then bring them to join your friends in the cafeterias if you don’t want to miss out on the socialising part of eating together (it is allowed to bring your own food), or temporarily tolerate meat/fish/etc. in your meals while being here as I did it from time to time. I think it is important to know that in advance, as I was really startled in the beginning that there really were no vegetarian options for me!

If you are intending to participate in Japanese language lessons, these are also taught on campus, and luckily they are taught in two buildings right next to the building in which the NUPACE office is located. The NUPACE office is there for you for all questions regarding your academic, but also private life during your time in NAGOYA.

6. Nagoya City and it’s Climate

One of the reasons that I wanted to come to Nagoya instead of for example Tokyo or Kyoto was that 1. it is not as big as Tokyo - “only” the fourth biggest city in Japan, and 2. not as touristy as both of these cities, but more international than Matsuyama. As I read in another student’s report that it would be possible to get around in Nagoya by bike, I thought this city might have exactly the right size for me, as I am used to go around by bike at home. Although I was right about Nagoya being not too touristy while still having everything to offer, I think I should warn everybody else that in fact it is way too big to be explored by bike only. You can definitely check out the close surroundings by bike and go to university by bike easily, but I had no idea HOW BIG a city of 2,2 million people really is – without the subway, you really can’t get to know the whole city I think. Just imagine that Nagoya has twice the size of Cologne, and imagine that it also has busy streets like Cologne. Another comparison can be made with Freiburg – Nagoya is more than ten times bigger than Freiburg! Besides, Nagoya is REALLY hilly! Just don’t have the same wrong image of yourself cycling everywhere and even visiting the surrounding mountains by bike as I did, then you won’t be disappointed. By the way, cyclists tend to ride their bikes on the pedestrians way instead of on the streets, and they never use their bell but go mainly on crazy speed, so watch out for bikes when you are walking and try to stay on one side of the path. Often, cyclists try to squeeze in between unaware pedestrians if there is not enough space and this very often is quite dangerous.

Nagoya itself is a nice big city that offers everything you need, but as all residences are outside of the city center, you might need to go to Sakae (Nagoya’s downtown) to get more advanced stuff or ride a subway for a few stations to get a hair cut for a reasonable price or just go and eat out at a certain restaurant. Taking the subway is really common, so the costs will probably be relevant for you; most places can be reached for 240-270 Yen (=1,80-2,00 Euros) one way. The areas of the campus and the residences are an area in which mainly wealthy people live. The area looks quite nice for a Japanese big city and doesn’t really have a big city feeling, as for example, there aren’t high skyskrapers and the streets are wide. There are many two story one family houses. This was very nice for me, as I prefer a not too stressful atmosphere, but still it was much bigger than what I am used to – Nagoya is over 10 times bigger than Freiburg concerning the number of inhabitants! Also, don’t expect a beautiful city with traditional houses. Nagoya and most other big cities in Japan are as grey as big cities in any country I know, but it is still not bad to live here even if you are used to smaller towns I think. Although my closest surroundings weren’t green, I still got to really like them!

The next supermarket from Ohmeikan and Yamate residences is about 10 minutes by foot, its name is “valor”. Food prices in Nagoya are mainly a little bit higher than in Germany, although the Yen is quite weak at the moment; local products are cheap, whereas things like cheese, fruits, nutella (which you can only get in bigger supermarkets for example in the Yagoto AEON mall) etc. are really expensive. For example, an apple, which are however really huge in Japan!, costs about one Euro each, and certain vegetables are very expensive, too, for example peppers which cost around 1,30 Euro each. Cheese is especially bad to get, as either, it isn’t what I consider to be cheese, or it costs 1200 Yen (8,80 Euros) for a really huge piece of around 1kg. Life isn’t easy as a cheese loving vegetarian in Japan, I can tell you. But all in all, I think food is just a little bit more expensive here than in Germany.

Another important point is the climate and weather in Nagoya: When I first arrived in late September, I thought it was going to be cold like in Germany. But I arrived and the temperature was 30°C! Until the end of October or even early November, it was still very warm in Nagoya and during the first couple of weeks, the temperature regularly went to 30°C, so bring short clothes and at least one pair of summer shoes no matter whether you are only here for the winter semester. Generally, during September and October, there is a very high probability of rain in Nagoya and it is the so called “typhoon season” - on two consecutive weekends, we all had to stay inside during the whole day and monday morning classes got cancelled because of the strong winds. Although some friends of mine didn’t take the typhoon seriously and still went out even though we were told not to, I advise everyone to just do as you are told in case of a typhoon and not go unnecessarily outside, then definitely nothing is going to happen to you. In late January, the temperatures had dropped to around 6°C during the day and -2°C at night, so be sure to bring thick and, on top of all, windproof winter clothing including gloves, scarf and something to warm your head, too! The winds are what make it really cold actually. We also got a little bit of snow for three days and many streets and pedestrian’s ways were frozen by very slippery ice. But mostly, Nagoya doesn’t really get snow; the areas in the mountains that surround Nagoya however already had snow since early November, so if you want to enjoy snow, you definitely can! During the warm days in September and October, as soon as you go to an area which has trees or other greens, you wil get attacked by really annoying micro mosquitoes that you can hardly see or feel when they bite you. Wearing long sleeves and pants is one solution, or bringing mosquitoe spray.

Note that all seasons start a little bit later in Japan. The summer ended maybe in early November, and then until the middle of December, it was the red leaves season. It got cold shortly before Christmas, and the coldest month is said to be February.

What really is surprising, but very nice about Nagoya and Japan in general, is that there are Shrines and Temples everywhere. You don’t have to go far to find these cultural places, wherever you are.

At last, I want to point out that Nagoya really was the better decision for me than Kyoto or Tokyo would have been; I don’t know about Matsuyama, because I haven’t been there. But both Kyoto and Tokyo are much more expensive and international than Nagoya, which is related to the huge amount of tourists that go there. One could say you are “more special” if you go to Nagoya – and even more special in the more rural Matsuyama I guess – and there is less international influence here than in Kyoto and Tokyo.

7. A typical day

On every weekday, my Japanese classes started at 8:45am. As it takes about 10-15 minutes to walk to the campus from Yamate North residence, I left here usually at 8:25 with some friends to enjoy an early morning chat on our way. On the way, you pass one of the already mentioned kombinis, so if you haven’t had time for breakfast or still need to print something or withdraw money, you’re safe. As I took the intensive class, my Japanese classes were taught from 8:45-10:15 and 10:30-12 every day. Afterwards, I either went to a cafeteria with my classmates and friends to have lunch there. In that case, I came home at around 13:00-13:30. On other days, I decided to walk home right after classes and cook there myself, then I got home at around 12:15. After eating, I usually had about one hour before my afternoon class started on mondays (from 14:45- 16:15) and about three hours on tuesdays and wednesdays (from 16:30-18:00). On thursdays and fridays, I luckily didn’t have any afternoon classes. In the time where I didn’t have class, there always were lots of homework and preparations for an upcoming test to do (mainly just for Japanese), so I spent mainly about 2 or 3 hours at my desk after finishing classes. As there won’t be any intensive courses of Japanese anymore from next semester onward, you will probably need only half the amount of time though, so don’t worry. I usually finished with my day’s university work at around 8 or 9 pm on a weekday, but many times, I squeezed in dinners with friends, which of course delayed getting ready for university. That was the reason why many nights, I slept only 5 to 6 hours and got up very early at 6am the next morning to finish my preparations for the test that I would have to write at 8:45am. Many of my friends that had the same amount of work to do however spent way less time studying. They didn’t have as good grades as me therefore, but everybody has other priorities, and after the first half of the semester, I also reduced the time I spent studying in order to get some more sleep and have more time to hang out with friends. I found that this was much better for me, as I was so stressed in the first half of the semester, and my grades were still good enough! Don’t stress too much about the numerous tests and exams that need to be written in Japanese universities. As there are so much more of them than in Germany (at least much less than what I am used to), they also count much less each!

On a typical weekend, I either left Nagoya on fridays after class with my friends to go on a weekend trip to other cities, coming back on sunday evening, or I spent quite some time studying and getting university work done that built up throughout the week, but also went out with friends everyday. There are many things that you can do within Nagoya – karaoke, visiting nice parks and shrines/temples, soaking in an onsen, going shopping and finding out about the crazy styles and fascinating different culture by marveling at the products – to mention just some examples! For me, it never got boring here, and there’s still so much that I didn’t even get to do.

8. The classes

At Nagoya University, it is not obligatory for international students to take Japanese language classes. I highly recommend doing so to everybody though, as of course it is a big difference in how fast one can advance in a foreign language if studying it within the country where it is actually spoken or back home. For all those wanting to study the language, there were two different kinds of Japanese classes offered: Japanese standard classes with 5 x 1.5 hours per week, or Japanese intensive classes with 5 x 3 hours. But as I heard that from next semester onwards, there will only be the standard class offered, probably future students won’t have to pick anymore. In case this system comes back, I will still provide my information about it though.

The big difference is obviously the amount of time spent in class, but also the amount of lessons that will be studied. It is an easy rule that explains pretty much everything to say that the intensive course does double the amount as the standard class in the same amount of time. This however also comes together with double the amount of tests, exams and homework. I will come back to these in more detail soon. Before that, I would like to explain about the Credit system in Japan and how this affected my decision of which classes to take in this semester. Although being warned by the people in charge for NUPACE students (NUPACE is the exchange program of Nagoya University) that the intensive course would be very, very intensive and that many people couldn't make it, so that there were many people downgrading to standard classes throughout the semester and losing their credits that way, I decided to try the intensive course. The reason was that in Japan, to officially be a student and meet the requirements to live in the country with the “student” visa, one needs to be enrolled for at least 15 credits (= 30 ECTS points) for one semester. The standard course is worth 5 credits when being finished succesfully, the intensive course 10 credits. Therefore, there was either the possibility to take the intensive course and do fewer other courses worth the remaining 5 credits next to it, or to go for the standard course and only gain 5 credits for Japanese while doing more other courses besides. As a big part of my motivation to come to Japan was to improve my Japanese, I thought it would be better to spend the hours working on Japanese instead of spending the same amount of time in more different other classes, adding up to the same amount of study time in total. This was also accompanied by the fact that there were not many English taught classes that are connected to my major Geography here in Nagoya for Bachelor students; many of the courses that I thought I would like to take actually were either only taught in Japanese, only applicable for Master students or clashed with the schedule of the Japanese classes. So, I enrolled for the intensive course. What is very good about the language classes is that in the first two weeks, you can just try out the course types and then fell your final decision in which kind you want to stay. In my case, I stayed in the intensive course, but moved up from the Beginners 2 level into the pre-intermediate one, concerning the advance that one has already made in Japanese. There are about 6 to 8 different levels of Japanese concerning the difficulty/progress already made that you will get sorted into after participating in a computer based test. In my case, this test was held on the third day after arrival. Good news is that even if you are sorted into a level that you don't feel comfortable with, you can simply change your class within the 2 weeks period and see whether one level up or lower suits your level better. I recommend not staying in a class if you get the impression of having already done most of the grammar on the schedule already, as you would probably be too advanced and not learn a lot during the semester. When I went up into the pre-intermediate class, I found that it was WAY faster than the level underneath; it actually felt like two or three steps ahead and not only one during the first two weeks. But here comes a comfort for everybody that will feel as torn between moving up a course or not as I did, I am glad that I stayed in the higher class anyways! That way, I quickly got pulled up into a much higher level of Japanese and got to be on the same level as everybody else in the class! During this semester, my Japanese improved so much and it wouldn't have been possible without the class change. Two more important things about the Japanese course system in Nagoya University: First, rumours say there won't be the same system of standard and intensive courses anymore from next semester onwards. In that case, I don't know how much of my explanations will still be useful for following students. And second, if the system stays and you get to pick between standard and intensive, be wiser than me and take standard. I am a very motivated learner and always work a lot for university even in Germany for my major, but the intensive course is just REALLY, REALLY intensive! In a normal week ofpre-intermediate, I had class every day from 8:45-12 with a short 15 minutes break from 10:15-10:30 from monday to friday. There was a kanji test about 10 new kanji plus about 20 kanji combinations with that new word that you need to be able to write and read every wednesday and thursday plus less regular tests in the other three Japanese class parts – the classes are divided into grammar, reading comprehension, listening comprehension and conversation/kanji. Besides, the amount of homework we got was so huge that I spent about 3 to 4 hours doing them in the beginning until I got a little bit quicker reading the actual tasks and didn't have to redo every lesson we did in class all over at home, because I got to know the vocabulary and didn't have to check for every second word in a divctionary anymore. But even now in the end of the semester, I still spend about 2 hours on the homework every day, and once you've finished these, the working day has just yet begun: Another test preparation, studying for the next real exam (that you have about every three weeks per class type (reading, listening etc.), which makes about one exam every week due to four class types), plus the other two or three classes that you might be taking next to Japanese, and trying to still experience and travel Japan or hang out with friends! It was a very stressful and exhausting semester, that is for sure, and if I would have stayed another semester, I would have definitely changed to standard Japanese course, as my calculation that it would probably sum up to the same amount of work to take more other classes plus standard Japanese as intensive plus less other classes turned out to be wrong in the aftermath; the other three classes I took were much less work, not even comparable!!!, and even if they just give 2 credits each which means that you would have to take two or three more classes to replace the 5 points you would not gain by upgrading to intensive, I think that it is much more suitabe to do it that way if you don't really just want to sit in your room and study, but also get to know Japan. Don't think that you won't make great progress in the standard classes, too; the content is more than fulfilling in there, too, and there you actually get the time to really study the contents good enough to actually keep them in memory, while in the intensive class we didn't even have enough time to review what we just learned two days ago once more, even if we felt the need for it. The pressure to prepare for the next test on the next day was just too big, and all of us taking the intensive course suffered many nights with too little sleep. I can assure everybody that your Japanese level will advance just as much in the standard course as in the intensive, just don't go into a too easy level of class concerning the advance.

What was great about the Japanese classes: While in the two offered beginners 1 classes, there were about 20 people per class, it already thinned out from beginners 2, meaning there were around 6 to 10 people per class in these levels. We were 9 people in my class and I think it was a perfect number to actively take part in the lessons while not being asked all the time, but often enough to really train, and also being able to really get to know your classmates. Another thing I think is worth mentioning is the teacher's system that they have here in Nagoya University: You don't just have one teacher or one per class type (reading, listening etc.), but in my class, we had 7 different teachers that each have their fixed lessons with your class every week. This might cause a little confusion in the beginning due to the fact that you have to get to know many people, but it is actually a great thing for learning, as you get used to many more people's different pronunciations and made the classes more interesting.

Next to my Japanese classes, I took three other courses that were more or less connected to my major Geography. As I mentioned before, the Japanese intensive classes were really, really demanding and took a lot of time to prepare; but I got rewarded by an unbelievably fast progress in Japanese! On the other hand, the other three courses were not much to work for. One of them, “Fundamentals of Earth Science”, was really great and I learned a lot, having to study for two small tests and two big exams during the whole semester. In this class, we regularly got shown rock samples that we learned about in theory before, had a great field trip during which we even excavated our own fossils!, had the opportunity to marvel at the Moon and Jupiter through a telescope and look at different minerals through microscopes. It was simply amazing. But the other two classes didn’t really teach me a lot; one of the classes, “Preparedness for imminent natural disasters”, was good for my personal knowledge of how to prepare for and behave in the case of for example an earthquake. Academically, it did not fulfill my expectation to enwiden my geologic understanding of how Japan’s natural disasters come into action though, as it is not very scientific. It was still fun in total, as we got to design our own disaster awareness games for future students and had a field trip, and some visits t the Disaster Mitigation Research Center, where we learned first aid skills etc.; therefore, in total, I would still recommend participating in this course, because it surely provides interesting and important information about how to live in Japan, where there could always be an earthquake happening.

But the third class, “Agricultural sciences”, was really disappointing. It just scratched the surface and even taught many wrong “facts”! On top of all, we were told in the beginning of the class that it was not allowed to criticize anything anybody else said in the course, which shocked the international students taking part in the class, but seemed to be normal for the Japanese classmates. I had similar experiences in the Japanese classes; whenever somebody critizied something, and if it only was a sandwich from a combini, most teacher usually answered something like “Why do you criticize Japan/our system/our teaching methods?”. It is a very different way of thinking here than in Germany, and I realized it is not a matter of course that you can always say your opinion freely actually. That was really surprising and is not easy to deal with as a student from Germany, where we usually get taught to question things and try to advance by falsifying wrong conclusions. I think it might still be good to criticize in a constructive and polite way even if the teachers might not want to hear it, because we live in the times of globalization and international relations, so cultural differences in academic behaviour as well as a more open minded attitude towards discussions should be included in Japanese teaching I suppose.

Many other students felt the same way when comparing their studies here to their home country’s universities regarding the quality of teaching. If you mainly come to improve in Japanese, this isn’t a problem I guess, as it wasn’t for me. But otherwise it can be quite disappointing and frustrating I think. If I would come here again, I would definitely pick rather classes from the Master’s degree even when only being Bachelor back home (which is allowed), as the quality of teaching was really way too low to learn a lot in the bachelor classes (except for Fundamentals of Earth Science, which was the best subject I took).

9. Traveling

Getting around in Japan is expensive. The cheapest way to travel is taking a long distance bus; the all in Japanese (!) webpage www.bushikaku.net offered the best prices I’ve seen during my whole time here, so be sure to check it out if you want to travel! For example, I only paid 2000 Yen (=14,80 Euros) for a one way trip from Tokyo back to Nagoya that took 6 hours. For a (Japanese high speed train), I would have had to pay 11,400 Yen (= 84 Euros), but it would also just have taken 2,5 hours. Although bushikaku.net is only in Japanese, you can either translate everything with Google Translate, because the translations are quite good to English!, or ask a Japanese for help, for example at Help Desk or your tutor. Every student can apply for getting a tutor for their semester here for free prior to their arrival, Nagoya University will send you the related information. I enjoyed spending time with my tutor, and you can freely decide when and how often to meet and what to do in your tutoring time. I think having a tutor is a great opportunity to make friends with a Japanese person for everybody.

10. Conclusion

All in all, my time in Nagoya was great! My Japanese skills advanced so fast and I got a great insight in how different a country can be than Germany. People were friendly, tried to help and many students are really interested in cross cultural exchange here in Nagoya. The city itself turned out to be the perfect spot to live and for trips to other spots in Japan, and I would not have wanted to live in another place from my viewpoint now, after I visited so many other cities. I advise future exchange students of Nagoya University to participate in more challenging sounding classes rather than in Bachelor classes that might include similar topics that they’ve already heard back home, as mostly in the Bachelor classes, the level of learning seems to be quite low. Apart from that, you will definitely learn a lot of Japanese during the language course here, no matter whether you will have a standard or intensive class! The student dormitories are great - they come with everything you need and are very comfortable. Additionally, they are much cheaper than finding your own apartment!

Finally, the greatest part about my time in Nagoya was getting to know all the great people that became a big community of friends or, at the core, like a second family for me. There are so many more countries and people that I want to visit now – a semester abroad surely widens your social network to people from all over the world.

I am very happy that I could come to Nagoya, and recommend coming here to anybody who’s interested in Japan!