Student Voice

Being a TCK (Third Culture Kid), it was difficult for me to get used to Japanese customs even though I am Japanese. Living in foreign countries for more than half of my life means not knowing Japanese traditions as much as people expect me to. The hardest time I have here in Nagoya is when I talk to regular Japanese people in club activities.

I am a member of a judo team in NU and sometimes sempai (upperclassmen) point me out for lack of courtesy. The language they speak sometimes puzzles me, too. The slang they use, quite often, I don't get and I have to ask the meaning of it even though my first language is Japanese.

Nagoya University is a really comfortable and fun place for me to spend my college life in. G30 Program offers me courses in English (and in a sort of western style); and once I go to club activities, there exists the Japanese culture. I really enjoy the gap between these two cultures that I switch back and forth within a day, and I like both of them. Not a lot of school can offer you this sort of "switch-culture" environment.

The reason why I chose to major in agricultural science was that I wanted to contribute in the society to eradicate poverty from the world. There is one particular lab in our department that focuses on rice quality improvement without the use of gene-modification, and I really want to join this lab next year. There are many other labs that work on interesting topics too, but this particular lab really got me interested.