Abroad in Japan: A Semester in Osaka
こんばんは！My name is Kris Jakobsen, and I recently completed a semester abroad in Osaka, Japan. I am an International Studies major with a minor in business, and in January of this year I had the opportunity to take a semester at Japan's Kansai Gaidai in Osaka! -Why Japan?- I decided to study in Japan for a myriad of different reasons. For starters, the culture and language has always been a huge point of interest for me, as well as Japan's incredibly collectivist society were huge motivations for wanting to visit. Added onto this, Japan's history and mythology have always been key points of interest, as well as one of the topics I decided to study during my time there! Personally, Japan also served as a means to challenge myself, as nearly every part of Japanese life is the polar opposite of that back home in the United States. Having studied the language for some time now, I found that there was no better place to test my skills and grow than...
