Nihon, Lets Go!

When I travelled abroad with IES abroad, I was surprised by all the support I received once I got there. The heads of my program were so kind and helpful in every aspect, from helping me figure out my phone situation and just in general making sure we were all doing well as we travelled abroad. The events and trips that they planned were top notch. Some folks argued that it was too overplanned for their liking, but they managed to squeeze so much fun into the few days we had in Okinawa or the time we had in Asakusa that it was worth it! And even then, there was still plenty of time available for personal travel. The classes weren't too intense--the ones taught by IES were deliberately made intensive to meet the standards of a typical US classroom, whereas the classes taught at Kanda were pretty lenient. I enjoyed most of my professors all the same, short of the one who was teaching Japanese Architecture as if she were teaching it to architecture majors who had already spent years studying it and didn't necessarily grade fairly from student to student. Manga and Animation was my favorite course, simply because it actually did what many of my major courses lacked--taught some of the basics and histories, then let you utilize those aspects to analyze manga and anime of your own choosing! It was definitely a class where you got out of it what you put in, so I ended up really learning a lot in the end. The professor is also very passionate about it :)

Overall, I absolutely loved my time there, and I can't wait to stop by and say hello next time I make it back to Japan!