Kansai Gaidai University

Dr. Paul Scott is one of the most incredible individuals I have ever met. If I ever have the time, I intend to return and audit a class under him. Take ANYTHING...you won't be disappointed. If you learn language in a total immersion setting, however, be prepared...most language is taught in English. After learning Mandarin in the backstreets of Shanghai, I simply could not pick up Japanese in a classroom that communicated in English.

Teach Japanese courses in Japanese with teachers that do not speak English. Although I hated my language course, the rest of my academic experiences more than made up for it.

Most of the afternoon elective courses are a waste of time. A complete joke compared to classes at my home institution... Grading was very easy as expectations were so low. On the other hand, this was fine for the majority of students, since most of the foreign students at Kansai Gaidai are not very studious or that interested in anything other than getting drunk and trying to hook up with Japanese students. The Japanese courses definitely required more effort, but were basically drill-and-regurgitate type courses and most foreign students made little effort to practice Japanese outside of class.

Honestly, I think Kansai Gaidai is basically an ingenious scheme to draw English-speaking foreigners to Hirakata in large number so that the university can market itself and increase enrollment by Japanese students looking to better their English... very little thought seems to have been put into the curriculum for international students. This program needs to take itself more seriously for it to be of any intellectual value to those studying abroad there.

THIS SCHOOL IS GEARED TOWARDS LEARNING JAPANESE!!!! Please don't make the same mistake I did. If you only have a passing interest in learning Japanese, this school is probably not going to work for you. I've been having to spend clost to 4 hours a night working only on my japanese course and i'm still not doing well in it. The other classes are for me are quite interesting. I would suggest checking out Sumi-e as it's my favorite.

Take a japanese course before you come or have a burning desire to learn the language. Trust me on this one.

Most students generally seemed to enjoy their courses and get along ok with their teachers. There were a couple of complaints, but there are always a couple of complaints. I really enjoyed Geishas, Gangsters and Samurai. Especially the sessions in which we critiqued western films on Japan.

One thing could be to encourage students to interact more in Japanese language classes. Admittedly this is never easy to do because everyone's so nervous. But its more fun when people start to open their mouths.

The afternoon courses taught in English were not up to par with my home university, and seem to be very "dumbed down". Kansai Gaidai does not really cater to brighter students, and many professors have low expectations, reflected by the grading system (which makes very high grades easy to achieve).

Professors should raise their expectations and encourage students to work harder, as opposed to catering for the bottom end of the academic ladder.

The language courses are pretty dry but not that hard, as long as you study on your own. The business courses are a bitch so don't take them unless you need them for your major. The other humanities electives were pretty easy, just make sure you take the good ones. Hollstein, Paul Scott are two really cool teachers.

Not really. The classes were pretty easy so it was nice to have a kind of vacation semester when I was at Kansai Gaidai.