dear student abroad...: January 2014

1/16/2014

Field report: Nicole in Japan

Nicole from New Jersey, USA

Hello!
My name is Nicole, and I live on the coast of New Jersey in the United States.

I chose to study abroad in Nagoya, Japan for the spring semester of my junior year, because I have always loved Japanese language, culture, and art.

A normal weekday in Japan consisted of me going to class and hanging out with friends. We had about three hours of Japanese class every day from 9 am to noon to practice grammar, speaking, and reading (very, very boring!); afterwards, I would usually meet up with friends and go to the cafeteria on campus or the convenience store. In the United States, when people think of convenience stores, they usually don’t imagine making a meal out of the type of food available (usually just candy, or snacks, and not even good ones at that!) but in Japan, there is a lot of delicious food sold in convenience stores! You can even buy sushi rolls!

Some days I had more class: I took two art classes (calligraphy and painting) as well as a religions class. But if I were done with class for the day, I would return to my dorm and finish my homework while hanging out with friends.

I often went to the grocery store to get food for that night’s dinner, and cooked with my Japanese roommate. At night, we would watch Japanese TV (which is ridiculous, if you’ve ever watched any Japanese game shows – sometimes, my roommate wasn’t even sure what was going on!) while we both did homework together. My roommate is majoring in

Nicole and one of her friends in Japan

English, so I would help her with her
language homework and she would help me with mine. We still video chat and do that sometimes.
On the weekends, I tried my best to do as much traveling as I could, and if we had any breaks in school, I would make sure to visit other cities. If it was a normal weekend though, I tried to explore Nagoya and go to different restaurants or stores around the city. I liked to go out and do photography, taking photos of the different places and people I saw, or sometimes just wanted to go shopping. I often went with friends on the weekend to our favorite sushi restaurant or to a nearby ramen shop!

Guideline: Japan

Sources:

http://www.planet-wissen.de/laender_leute/japan/japanische_kultur/index.jsp
http://www.japanische-kultur.de/regeln.html
http://www.atanango.com/reise-infos/reisefuehrer/asien/japan--jp/

1/15/2014

Field report: Thilo in the Netherlands

My name is Thilo Querfurth, I was born in Wilhelmshaven, Germany and I am 21 years old.
I lived my whole life in the same city together with my parents and my sister.
After I finished the High school I decided for myself to study abroad. The decision was very easy for me, because I love to visit other countries and I like to make new experiences.

Because of one travel to England I thought it would be nice to study an English subject. My old school was an economics and business school and because I like these topics I planned to study also something like this.

Then I moved to Leeuwarden in the Netherlands and I studied IBMS (international business and management studies) at the Stenden Hogeschool. I was there for half a year and I am quite happy with my decision so far.

When I arrived in the Netherlands I had no culture shock at all. As a kid I used to travel a lot of times to the Netherlands so I was already familiar with this country. I also think that the Netherlands and Germany are not so different from each other.

I arrived here shortly before the Study Start Week started so I had not much time were I was by myself and where I could get confronted with new unknown situations. In the Start Week I already made several friends and if you have contact with other people it is quite difficult to realize the culture shock.

But I heard from other students having some problems to stay here in the Netherlands. For example one student from Cameron had no idea what to do or what to eat. He was not at the Starting Week so it was quite difficult for him to get used to this country or to get in touch with the other students. After I met him we took him to the city center to show him everything.

When I talked the last time to him he seemed to be more relaxed and already happy in the Netherlands.

So my conclusion is that for Germans or students from west Europe there is almost no culture shock, because of the similarities of the countries but for students from other continents it is quite hard to get used to the western world.
I would tell other people to study a semester abroad, because you get a lot of international competences. I got new friends and experiences. A semester abroad can help you to become adult and independent.