[steven]

This is just my opinion, but I think that watching a Japanese show in Japanese without subtitles is the best. Chances are you will only understand a VERY small percentage of the language. This is more about picking up inflections, intonation, mannerisms, and junk like that.

In my experience, I was most comfortable with using English subtitles at first. That was good at first... but I started to see that I was paying less and less attention to the spoken language and more attention to the subtitles (once you get to a certain level though it doesn't matter too much as you can tell what they're saying). After a while I liked to watch stuff with Japanese subtitles. Then I would watch things with just the spoken Japanese. I had a couple of movies I really liked, and I would watch them over and over again in just Japanese. I would watch the news sometimes and watch variety shows and stuff like that.

As far as finding study abroad students at your school, just look/ask around. Sometimes schools have clubs for those things. If your school doesn't have a club, maybe there is a place where study abroad students have to be sometimes. Find them-- don't bug them, and if they don't want your company leave them alone. If they are friendly though, get to know them and start helping them out in exchange for their help. They need help with some of the official business they have to take care of and you will certainly need help with your Japanese courses. I know some teachers look down on getting natives to help you with your homework, but to be quite honest there is no better source of help to learn a language from than a native. I made a TON of friends doing this and have some of my favorite memories in college with study abroad students. I still keep in touch with a lot of them, too. Some people will just be acquaintances and some people can become long term friends.

If there is a club with study abroad students, get involved and help them out. They will likely get together and probably invite you after a while. That's where you'll get real and raw native language input (as in listening and observing their conversations). I'd say that is something to consider in about your second year of college level Japanese.