Hell and Back Again Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The material taught is not intense at all, most classes felt like they were teaching common sense. Several studies did not even know what a thesis statement was nor how to craft a coherent argument in a paper. Truancy rate is also very high in classes, and if they're not truant students are head down on desk sleeping in the middle of class. I've never been so uninspired to learn in my life. All the talking at you lecture style was not my thing.

On-site administration of your program

Overall, program was extremely disorganized. No syllabus was received for class expectations in the fall; we weren't told that we had to pay for a national insurance that we didn't know we were receiving until 6 months into the program; coordinator was constantly changing deadlines, meeting places/times for event without an appropriate amount of prior warning, did not really seem proactive about truly matching students with internships that actually would interest them nor develop real skills for future potential professions, etc. Nice lady, but maybe this isn't the job for her. International office also offers no support during the year, don't event introduce themselves or hold an event to get the abroad students familiar with them that I know of, and also make students do a ridiculous scavenger hunt like paper collecting all these signatures from people who work in facilities that they never used or interacted with. Most extraneous thing I had to do. A student ending up leaving the Midd program and Japan altogether early because it was hard transition for them and no real support was offered to her to get through it. That should speak volumes in itself. Wouldn't recommend this program to my dog.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Facilities were new so they were modern, clean. I had a single room so was fine with my own space. Had to fight for a long time to get all their ludicrous floor rules written down in English and were accessible for any of that needed to refer to them. Much unnecessary tension was caused simply because rules were not explained properly in the beginning despite have fluent English speakers present on the floor. I was also subjected to living on the same floor as someone who was clearly xenophobic and acted aggressively toward me and another Middlebury girl, when I tried to complain people were spending more time offering excuses for him despite not liking him personally and trying to discourage me from taking the complaint to housing and "making it a scene" than actually directing me to resources to help deal with the problem. Combined with what I felt was a lack of support from the coordinator, I was very miserable living in the dorm most of the time. Would have had much more fun living in an apartment or sharehouse most likely.

I made my own food.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

Took me awhile to get the hang of it, but once I started doing things on my own I felt I was able to integrate more, but I knew I would never truly be accepted no matter how good my Japanese got. The people are still stuck in an antiquated mentality it seems that Japan is for the Japanese, but that's not something anyone can control.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I can't comment because I never had a serious health issue while in Japan.

Japan's pretty safe in general so I never really felt scared for my life or anything like I do in America.

Make that above answer a "Hell no", please. Like I said before, support is limited, forced to take courses in Japanese that were separate from JLP was a nightmare for lower and higher level students alike, annoying scavenger hunt from ICU administration, overall student apathy toward the importance of education was disheartening, too many rules in dorms, etc etc.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

Japan is an expensive country particularly with public tranport, and having had to cook for myself grocery were also expensive even on a very conservative budget.

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

Overbearingly. So much so that the on site coordinator even admitted to making an example out of me to other students when I accidentally said something in English to a friend. Called me out for not speaking Japanese in front of everyone, but said nothing to the two girls right next to me speaking Chinese :)

Select all that apply

• Dorm

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• Local Students
• Americans
• International Students

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• Local Students
• Americans
• International Students

• Absolutely
• Nothing

• Everything
• Everything
• Everything

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