For about 10 months from October 2014, I was studying as an exchange student at Heinrich-Heine University in Duesseldorf, Germany. Duesseldorf is the capital of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia located in the west of Germany. This city is known as one of the biggest commercial cities in Germany where quite a few Japanese companies locate their base in Europe. If you walk around the central station, you will find a lot of Japanese restaurants.

I came to Duesseldorf to study German and English, and also to make new human relations all by myself in this new place. In the classes, I learned more practical German vocabulary and expression, English presentation, business English etc. Each European university has a number of students who are studying for a few semesters in other European countries as an ERASMUS student. We can easily find such students even at Heinrich-Heine University. It was a fresh feeling that foreign students, for example, from Turkey, Italy and Poland were sitting next to me in the German class.

By the way Heinrich-Heine University has a Department of Modern Japanese Studies, one of the largest institutions of Japanese Studies in Germany. The students of this department are studying not only Japanese Language, but also have a great interest in various Japanese things, such as social problems, subculture, and so on. I was really surprised when I asked my friend “What’s your favorite Japanese?,” and she immediately answered “Wabi-Sabi.”

(Many friends came to the airport to see us off.)

What we gain through our studying abroad is not only the ability of language or special knowledge. Experience, friends, and connection with people that we got in our daily life will be added to our strength as well.

Kanazawa University provides generous support to exchange students and they are always taking care of us from Japan. Moreover even if you have a financial anxiety because of economic reason, it’s also possible to receive a scholarship while studying abroad which you don’t need to pay back in the future. Now all you need is just your step forward to foreign countries.

 

(Updated: September 1, 2015)