Andrew Zarate, Study in Japan at Konan Fall 2024
Some advice I would give is to make an effort to talk to new people. During this program you are given the option to select 0-3 “Tomodachi” (Essentially language partners and guides), who are local students willing to help you with whatever you need. I would strongly support applying for this system to start off with some local friends. From there, through these friends, you can meet more local students. Japanese people tend to be more on the shy side, meaning it’s really up to you to approach these students and start conversations, which is why it’s really important to start trying to make as many friends as possible as soon as possible. Another thing I would recommend is choosing the homestay option over the dorm for this program. I was very lucky to have an amazing homestay family who converse almost every dinner, as well as inviting me to do activities outside the house. For example, my host brother would drive me, and another student who was staying with me, to things like a golf range, observatory decks in the mountains, and out into the countryside to see nature and the stars. Also, through host families, you can increase your language proficiency rapidly, as well as build relations with them that can last way longer than the program time itself. The advice I would give is to take as many trips as you can afford to. The school of Konan is located in between two cities, Kobe and Osaka allowing you to visit them pretty easily by train within 30 minutes. Furthermore, there are never any classes on the weekends, which allowed for me to make day/weekend trips to places all over the Kansai (area of Japan that covers Osaka, Kyoto, and more) region. Depending on where you stay, Kyoto is 1–2 hours away, Nara 1–2 hours, Wakayama 2–3 hours, Himeji 1 hour, and if you really want to, you could bullet train to places like Hiroshima or Nagoya within 2 hours. So during the weekends, if you don’t really have any plans, I would take the time to travel to any of these places and experience the different sides of Japan. In the pictures below is a daytrip to Kyoto and an after-school trip to Osaka. Kyoto is particularly beautiful during the fall colors so I would highly recommend seeing it during that time.
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