Yang Yuxuan
From China
Kyoto Campus / Advanced III-4
Ryukoku University
Admitted to the Department of International Cultural Studies, Faculty of International Studies
- Please introduce yourself.
- My name is Yang Yuxuan. I am from Zhejiang Province, China. I attended an international high school, and since I had decided to go abroad for higher education from an early stage, I studied Japanese while in high school and passed N3.
After graduating from high school, I came to Japan to study and enrolled in the Kyoto School as a January 2021 student. Six months after coming to Japan, I passed the N2 exam. A little over a year in Japan passed in the blink of an eye, and now I have received an acceptance letter from Ryukoku University, Faculty of International Studies, Department of International Cultural Studies, and will be entering the university in April.
My specialty is table tennis, and my hobbies are gaming and updating bilibili video posts. - Why did you choose Kyoto School?
- My high school is affiliated with several Japanese language schools in Japan. I am interested in cross-cultural communication and language learning, and wanted to experience as many different cultures as possible. Therefore, I chose ISI because it is not biased toward any one nationality and has a rich international flavor, which I thought would suit me. ISI met my expectations because there are students from many different countries. I also made some like-minded American friends at the school. He is also planning to go on to higher education in Japan in the future, so I may be his EJU instructor when he does so (laughs).
ISI has four other schools in addition to the Kyoto campus, but I chose the Kyoto campus because it was recently established, so the campus facilities are relatively new and I thought the learning environment and equipment were excellent. Also, Kyoto as a living environment is not noisy like Tokyo, nor is it depopulated like the countryside; it is convenient to live in, but at the same time you can enjoy "wabi and sabi" at the same time. I decided to study in Kyoto because I wanted to experience the environment according to my own state of mind at the time, without being influenced by the environment. - What is your impression of ISI's teachers?
- The teachers are very responsible. I was most impressed by Ms. Negishi and Ms. Yoshida.
Ms. Negishi, without whom I would not be able to talk about my entrance exam experience, helped me gather detailed university information, including admission requirements (entrance exam guidelines) for schools that I had skipped or challenged, and helped me revise my statement of purpose to a more Japanese style of writing. She also taught me strategies on how to take the interview since all of the three universities I tried were only screening application materials and interviews. In addition to Ryukoku University, I was accepted into Kyoto Seika University's Department of Global Studies. I could not pass the challenge schools because I did not have enough EJU scores, but I think I did well in the interview under the guidance of my teachers.
Ms.Yoshida is close in age to us international students, so although she is a teacher, she is like a friend. She is very approachable and will talk about young people's topics, such as Japanese idols, with the international students. - Why did you decide to apply to Ryukoku University?
- I am interested in international exchange and foreign language study, and upon researching, I found that among universities in the Kansai region, Ryukoku University has a well-developed Department of International Cultural Studies.
Another reason is that Ryukoku University's table tennis club is nationally renowned. I was a table tennis player on a local team when I was in junior high school, and I wanted to continue playing table tennis even after studying in Japan. For this reason, I chose Ryukoku University. - What are your plans after graduation?
- After graduating from college, I would like to go to graduate school or work in Japan for a few years before returning to China. In the future, I would like to work at an international school and be involved in study abroad in Japan and international exchange between China and Japan.
- Please give a message to younger students who are considering studying in Japan.
- Once you enter the workforce, there will be few people who speak as slowly and clearly as the teachers at the Japanese language school. Also, there will be no one who is always concerned about whether or not we are understanding the language properly, so please make the most of your study period at the Japanese language school to learn well.
