When I first started college, I came in already declared a Japanese Major. Whenever I was or am asked the inevitable "why Japanese?", I always think of my high school Japanese program. My program was a little different, in that we had very strong connections to our sister city Hanno in Japan. As such, we had projects and an exchange program that I actively participated in, that organically grew my love for not only the language, but the culture and people of Japan. From those experiences, and the encouragement of my high school teacher, I decided to further study Japanese, with the end goal of working in Japan.
While I have been studying in this major, I have not only improved my secondary language skills, but I feel I have also improved my ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations, accept other cultures that are different from my own, and learn to be respectful and work well with many type of people, even those I was less than fond of. My initial goal coming in was to gain the skills to work in Japan, and while that hasn't changed I have a much clearer path on how to do that and what I want to do now thanks to the experiences I've had in this program, especially MLO 5, studying abroad. Studying abroad was not only extremely helpful for my language skills, but it also gave me the opportunity to talk with those who already are doing what I hope to one day do.
Within this program I would say that while I am proud of how far my language skills (MLO 1) and cultural skills (MLO 2) have improved greatly, it is within MLO 4, research and technology that I am the most proud of the steps I've made. I used to have a huge problem with presenting, which falls under this category, and still struggle with it somewhat to this day. However with practice and the support of the faculty, I have gotten to a point where presentations don't fill me with panic and dread, and that means a lot to me. So, continuing on from here, my goal is to continue to improve my presentation skills, as well as my language skills, so that one day I can have the ability to work in Japan, hopefully as a teacher. But I'll see where life takes me.
While I have been studying in this major, I have not only improved my secondary language skills, but I feel I have also improved my ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations, accept other cultures that are different from my own, and learn to be respectful and work well with many type of people, even those I was less than fond of. My initial goal coming in was to gain the skills to work in Japan, and while that hasn't changed I have a much clearer path on how to do that and what I want to do now thanks to the experiences I've had in this program, especially MLO 5, studying abroad. Studying abroad was not only extremely helpful for my language skills, but it also gave me the opportunity to talk with those who already are doing what I hope to one day do.
Within this program I would say that while I am proud of how far my language skills (MLO 1) and cultural skills (MLO 2) have improved greatly, it is within MLO 4, research and technology that I am the most proud of the steps I've made. I used to have a huge problem with presenting, which falls under this category, and still struggle with it somewhat to this day. However with practice and the support of the faculty, I have gotten to a point where presentations don't fill me with panic and dread, and that means a lot to me. So, continuing on from here, my goal is to continue to improve my presentation skills, as well as my language skills, so that one day I can have the ability to work in Japan, hopefully as a teacher. But I'll see where life takes me.