Atsushi Otani - 2013 admission

Every single day in this International Course is like a small but wonderful adventure. I would like to summarize my 8-months long campus life in this way. It is true that while taking classes in English, I stay in Japan. However, my life here is so exciting with the help of 20 classmates from 8 different countries. I have been indeed inspired not only by their smartness, intelligence, and industriousness but also by their kindness and patience. In classes what I took for granted have often turned out to be not so common. Even an ordinary conversation has provided me with different ways of thinking. Furthermore, on weekends I could come into contact with various cultures. For example, I went calligraphy exhibitions to see my Japanese classmate’s works and to Malam Indonesia to see my Indonesian classmates’ dances in their traditional clothes.
In addition to these interesting events, during the school festival called November Festival, 4 classmates and I had an opportunity to visit Tokyo, my hometown, for 4 days. On the first day we visited Skytree, 634-meter-high tower. We enjoyed a night view of Tokyo from a 450-meter-high deck. I think it was a good experience to know how huge this civil engineering masterpiece is. The next day we went to Tokyo Disney Sea and have a lot of fun by riding many coasters. On the third and fourth day we explored famous towns in Tokyo such as Akihabara, Harajyuku, Shibuya, and Shinjyuku. At the end, we took the Shinkansen, the bullet train, on our way to Kyoto. Overall the trip was interesting for me in that I could see my hometown from different points of view due to their comments or questions. And I hope that the trip was good for them in that they experienced Tokyo and found new things in Japan.
Finally, here I do really appreciate the kindness and efforts of professors, lecturers, staff, my seniors, and my classmates all of who seek to develop this program further.