Temple university japan campus building

Academic Information

  1. The Program
  2. The Campus
  3. The Classes

The Program

The program I went with was Temple University. Temple University is actually an American based university with its main campus in Philly. There are a large number of benefits associated with this. For example, often taken for granted is that Temple operates under an American semester schedule. The Japanese academic term, in comparison with the American academic term, is significantly offset. Moreover, Japan spreads out its breaks more evenly, meaning that syncing school terms between Japanese and American universities can get messy. In addition, all courses by default are taught in English.

The Campus

The Japan campus itself is quite nice. Like I said, by default classes are taught in English. One thing to note is that while over half of the students are admitted from Japan, a significant proportion of the people on campus are not from Japan. While this certainly makes coping with living in Japan much easier, on the other hand I also felt as if I did not quite recieve a full experience, and I may not have gotten a completely Japanese perspective from some of my classes.

The Classes

When choosing classes, really consider taking classes that are not readily available outside of Japan. My personal class schedule is as follows. Class catalog for my semester here

Days Course No. Course Title Meeting Times
M W F 6937 Japanese 1 1:30 - 3:30
M W F 7536 Japanese Graphic Design History 5:30 - 7:30
M W F 7060 Anime in Japanese Popular Culture 7:10 - 9:10
T Th 7059 Manga in Japanese Popular Culture 7:10 - 9:10
Japanese 1
I didn't know any Japanese coming into Japan, so I had to take Japanese 1. Pretty par for the course.
Japanese Graphic Design History
Graphic Design is commonly referred to as advertising art. In contrast with fine art, graphic design is often mass produces, distributed to the people, and often has an explicit purpouse. This course covered graphic design as it started in the mid 19th century up to modern day, teaching how graphic desing evolved as well as extremely significan figures in the history of Japanese graphic design.
Anime in Japanese Popular Culture (unofficial)
I was not actually enrolled in this course. I wouldn't have been able to make it anyways since it overlaps with the previous class, which I was taking for arts credits.
Manga in Japanese Popular Culture
This class studied manga in depth since it's modern origins in the post WW2 era. Manga is often compared to comics, yet in Japan manga have a much stronger presence and social influence than in the western world. This class in part explains what events and what people lead to the development of Manga as such an influential medium, and not just in pop culture.

Despite being in a technical major, being in a humanities college meant that I had a number of humanities based geneds that I had to take. This largely affected my decision to take misc classes, as I personally wanted to free up my semesters back home for taking major relevant courses. As for taking classes that directly contribute to one's major requirements, I don't have any commentary on that.