Japanese Studies Major

[kawaiivampire54]

I was wondering what kind of jobs I could get in Japan with a japanese studies major? The major includes teaching me to be fluent in japanese and it teaches me the culture and history for japan. So, I was wondering, if anybody could give me any ideas.
Thank you!

[Lonthego]

I was also an asian studies major and a linguistics major. You have a few options:
-Teaching English (if nothing else than helping you get your foot in the door)
-Becoming a translator/interpreter (This is what I do, it will take a bit more than 4 years of university Japanese but you will be on your way)
-Quite a few other options (see below)

Really the question you need to ask yourself is, what do you want to do with your Japanese? You can do anything with your Japanese, limited only by your proficiency, because most people just view language as a medium through which to do other things. Does academia interest you? (being a professor and teaching Japanese history, language, etc.) Or maybe Business? What I'm saying is language in itself is very vague, with infinite possibilities, so you'll have to narrow your interests down, and work from there.

Not a lot of people who graduate with a degree like Japanese go straight into a job. Have you considered the JET program? Or a postgrad advanced language center like Inter-University Center? Quite a lot of liberal arts majors opt for graduate school as well, both to ride out the bad economy and because competition for jobs can be harsh for liberal arts majors without an advanced degree. So never eat dinner alone! Make connections..

[Pogopuschel]

Basically it comes down to teaching English or going to grad school. Teaching English it not even considered a feasible long-term career by most people. Actually, you could teach English even without a degree in Japanese. You only need very basic Japanese skills (if any at all) to get English teaching jobs. Teaching experience would be much better in that case.

What kind of skills do you really get when studying Japanese at university? Great, you'll be able to speak Japanese but there are more than hundred million people in Japan who can do that as well, still much better than you. If you stick with your university Japanese program you won't even be fluent after your degree, most programs will put you on a level around JLPT N2. That's something you can easily achieve by yourself using self-study or by going and studying in Japan for less than a year.

Now you might argue that you can also speak fluent English which most Japanese can't. That's true, but 99.99% of jobs in Japan won't require native English, no advantage for you.

Personally I think a degree in Japanese (or any language for that matter) is more or less useless. Why pay tuition to learn something you can just as easily (and even faster) learn by yourself? Of course, you will need to have genuine interest in the language to success in self-study.

My suggestion: What do you want to work as? Just study what you're interested in and learn Japanese on the side. You can probably still take Japanese classes if you really want to.