Translated by OfferLand from the original Traditional Chinese post. View original

Jessica

Jul 8, 2024

How to Make the Most of Studying Abroad💌｜Waseda Student Reporter, My Favorite Japanese-Karaoke Club, Waseda International Exchange, and the Kanto Taiwanese Student Association

Life abroad # 分享 # 留學 # 留學心得資料夾 # 生活分享 # 日本

Before I left to study abroad, I'd already made up my mind‼️

Make the most of every opportunity and every moment, no regrets 😎

Maybe in the moment you'll think, ugh, I'm exhausted, forget it, I'll skip it

But you're already abroad!!! Don't give yourself regrets!!🔥

I want to share how I made the most of my time abroad💌

Not wasting a single second and making every moment count, so I put together my four favorite extracurricular activities

1️⃣ Selected as a Waseda student reporter❓学生レポータ

Last semester I happened to see on the school website that there's a student reporter program, which picks a few students as reporters for that semester📝

Each month the student reporters publish an article (in Japanese and their native language), and the school posts it on its official website and its Facebook and Instagram pages!

For someone like me who loves writing and documenting my life, it was the perfect chance to put that to use💓

As soon as I saw the recruitment notice over the summer, I applied right away, and I was selected as a student reporter for the fall semester

🔎What's the job❓ 「学生レポーター」は、日本語教育プログラムの在籍する学生が、授業の様子、早稲田大学での諸活動、日本での留学生活等に関し、自身の経験に基づく生の声を伝える活動です。「学生レポーター」は、大学のボランティア活動として位置づけられています。

🌟There's a planning meeting every month with a professor and the school office in charge - mainly to help students check their content is accurate and to arrange publishing on the relevant sites🫣

🌟The monthly meetings are relaxed and fun. We catch up with each other and discuss the next few items on the schedule and the topic of the next article❗️

🌟Once you finish your monthly article, you send it to your supervising professor to check the content, then to the school office in charge, and after that you can see your post on the official pages～💯

2️⃣ My favorite Japanese-karaoke club❓PADDY is actually an English-Japanese exchange club～～～

🌟After club meetings everyone's favorite thing is to head straight to karaoke🎤 so often that we go once a week, but karaoke in Japan is cheap💓 I didn't listen to Japanese songs before, and after this year my playlist is all Japanese songs xd

🌟Club meetings start in 4th period and split into an English table and a Japanese table

🌟You join a group based on the language you want to practice, and the officers rotate groups every 15-20 minutes

🌟That way everyone gets a chance to talk. My spoken Japanese really improved here

🌟The club has quite a few Japanese students, so it's great for practicing listening and speaking. I also made really good Japanese friends here

⚠️Quick tip: if you want to make Japanese friends, I recommend international exchange clubs.　The Japanese students who join these clubs usually want to meet international students too

3️⃣ Waseda's largest international exchange organization❓ ICC｜Intercultural Communication Center

🌟This was the first extracurricular I joined. I went in nervous, but the event was a lot of fun. From check-in on, the staff were warm and welcoming, and I didn't feel any pressure or fear at all. If anything, I was looking forward to the next events💓

🌟ICC puts real effort in. Every month it holds all kinds of events that are free to join, including language exchange lunches/cherry blossom viewing/campus exploration/country culture experiences/career talks/holiday events and more❗️

🌟Early on I went to everything and made so many friends. It's a great way to grow your network! Through the events you learn about the cultural values of students from other countries, which I found really interesting😻

🌟I really love these exchange events～ I even put each month's event dates in my calendar and go whenever I'm free🥵

💓This is a Japanese girl I met at one of these events, and now we're super close friends🥳

We hung out together while I was studying abroad, and we've stayed in touch since I came back to Taiwan☎️

4️⃣ Taiwanese Student Association in the Kanto region of Japan❓TTSA｜Tokyo Taiwanese Student Association

🌟This was my main extracurricular in the second semester, because a friend of mine was an officer there

🌟It seemed like fun and a way to meet Taiwanese students at other universities, so I applied to be an officer for the fall semester just to give it a try xd Then I got in and became an officer in the association's media and PR department

🌟Mainly writing articles for our own media column/helping with events the association hosts/supporting government-related events for international students and so on🫣

🌟Every event was really fun, and I got to meet more Taiwanese students. They're wonderful memories for me

🌟The officers also often get together or take two-day, one-night trips to other prefectures!