Quote:
Originally Posted by CoreyLynn
I'm sorry to intrude on this thread, but I'm 17 and have also considered working toward and seeing if a life in Japan would be right for me.
All the posts here are so helpful, especially Steven's and willgoestocollege's; thank you!
But I have a question:
I'm going to be a senior this coming year and that means really considering what college I want to pursue and what I want to major in. I'm already planning on taking college courses this fall to start and learn Japanese. And hopefully, I'll be taking a trip there as a High School graduation present after this next year.
But do you guys recommend any colleges that have good Japanese Studies programs?
I'm thumbing through CollegeToolKit.com right now to see which schools offer it as a major, but would like to hear if someone has any suggestions.
I actually really wanted to attend Temple University Japan Campus (An American University in Tokyo), but I'm looking for alternates.
I'd prefer a school on the west coast, since that's where my family is, but will appreciate any help.
And what could I do with a Japanese Studies Major?
Is the only career path going to be an english teacher?
I have nothing against teaching english (I actually think that it could be a nice experience), but I'm just curious if that's the only thing I'll be able to do.
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Well, the first thing I can tell you is that probably no matter what Japanese Studies program you take you will more than likely not be fluent in Japanese when you graduate from it. I have met a lot of Japanese majors and many of them were not beyond an (old) JLPT level 3. I mean, when it comes to language your progress is mostly up to you I think, but the pressures of other studies will probably water down your language efforts during college.
As a far as what you can do with your degree, well you mentioned west coast so I assume you are from the States, so you could probably work towards being a Japanese language teacher, or possibly a translator or interpreter.
A degree in Japanese studies is one of those degrees that does not give you any specific marketable skills (other than Japanese language perhaps), like a degree in Finances, Engineering, Business Management, Computer Science etc would. But that does not mean it is worthless or that you will not be able to find a job, you just will need to hone your networking skills and learn to sell yourself in another fashion. In a way I think it gives you freedom, but it could be limiting in that many places will probably take the person with a degree in Finances, for example, over you say if you tried to get a job at a bank.
Honestly if I could go back and do things over, I would have got my degree in Business Management, or Human Resources, and then with that degree in hand, I could market my Japanese skills as a secondary bonus to give me that edge of the person with just the basic degree in those fields.