Spring 2022
My semester was very different compared to the experience other people may have had in the past semesters. Spring 2022 was the first semester the Japanese governments started to let international students enter the country during the Covid-19 pandemic. So my experience may be different from those that came before and come after me.
Japanese classes are a bit different compared to in UH Manoa. Classes only meet once a week and each class is 2 credits. This means that you will be taking many different classes, but only seeing each one once a week. I was lucky enough to form a schedule that allowed me to take all my classes on three days, essentially giving me 5 free days a week. The first thing that I would like to note is that a majority of my classes were online, and I had two that were on campus. The online classes were to allow students that still could not enter the country to attend classes and be considered an active student. Classrooms were rather small with around 20 students in classes. The learning experience differed from class to class as each professor had their own teaching style. Some preferred standard lectures with slideshows, while other liked to have the students be engaged and have them contribute to the class with their own ideas and opinions. The class that I enjoyed the most was the Japanese Foreign Policy class. The class always starts with a lecture on the topic of the day, and ends with a discussion created by forming students into small groups being asked to answer a set of questions. The discussions were very interesting as people had different perspectives or ideas of the questions being asked because of different backgrounds.
For the in-person classes, I had two and they both were on tuesdays. Getting to campus took me about 45 minutes on average from my dormitory. The university requires students to wear face masks on at all time, when comparing this to UH Manoa which had begin removing the mask mandate. Similar to the online classes, my in-person classes were somewhat small and the professors taught class using a standard lecture style.
When it comes to grading, Japanese classes tend to base your whole grade on a small selection of factors. This includes attendance, homework, midterms, and a final. For some classes, they based my entire grade based on my final. Most of my classes required me to write a final paper, which meant that by the final month of the semester, I was scrambling on trying to write multiple papers at the same time. The only class that did not require me to write a paper was my elementary Japanese class that instead required a final exam. The school life in Japan is much different compared to UH Manoa and some of the things felt foreign to me. But I was able to perform well in my classes, and I think I would get a good grade on my classes as of writing this. There were definetely some things that I could have improved on, such as conducting research on my finals earlier, or at least deciding on a topic to write about.
Japanese classes are a bit different compared to in UH Manoa. Classes only meet once a week and each class is 2 credits. This means that you will be taking many different classes, but only seeing each one once a week. I was lucky enough to form a schedule that allowed me to take all my classes on three days, essentially giving me 5 free days a week. The first thing that I would like to note is that a majority of my classes were online, and I had two that were on campus. The online classes were to allow students that still could not enter the country to attend classes and be considered an active student. Classrooms were rather small with around 20 students in classes. The learning experience differed from class to class as each professor had their own teaching style. Some preferred standard lectures with slideshows, while other liked to have the students be engaged and have them contribute to the class with their own ideas and opinions. The class that I enjoyed the most was the Japanese Foreign Policy class. The class always starts with a lecture on the topic of the day, and ends with a discussion created by forming students into small groups being asked to answer a set of questions. The discussions were very interesting as people had different perspectives or ideas of the questions being asked because of different backgrounds.
For the in-person classes, I had two and they both were on tuesdays. Getting to campus took me about 45 minutes on average from my dormitory. The university requires students to wear face masks on at all time, when comparing this to UH Manoa which had begin removing the mask mandate. Similar to the online classes, my in-person classes were somewhat small and the professors taught class using a standard lecture style.
When it comes to grading, Japanese classes tend to base your whole grade on a small selection of factors. This includes attendance, homework, midterms, and a final. For some classes, they based my entire grade based on my final. Most of my classes required me to write a final paper, which meant that by the final month of the semester, I was scrambling on trying to write multiple papers at the same time. The only class that did not require me to write a paper was my elementary Japanese class that instead required a final exam. The school life in Japan is much different compared to UH Manoa and some of the things felt foreign to me. But I was able to perform well in my classes, and I think I would get a good grade on my classes as of writing this. There were definetely some things that I could have improved on, such as conducting research on my finals earlier, or at least deciding on a topic to write about.