Japanese/East Asian Studies

Colleges and Universities A-Z Villanova University
1

<p>I plan on concentrating (maybe as a minor) on East Asian Studies, but particularly Japanese studies, including language.</p>

<p>These questions are directed at anyone taking any type of course in East Asian Studies.</p>

<p>1) How intensive is the East Asian Studies curriculum at Nova? If you could state what courses you are taking at the moment, that would be great as well.</p>

<p>2) What are the study abroad programs like? I looked at the website, and it has information about a connection with Sophia University, a university in Japan that I have always thought about studying at.</p>

<p>3) What are the teachers like (in any of the classes, including culture and language classes)? Especially for Japanese language, what text books are used?</p>

<p>4) Is it easy to find opportunities to use the language (Japanese, Korean, Chinese), like finding native speakers, local towns with large concentrations of people who speak the language, stores, restaurants, malls, businesses, internships, anything. For example, my sibling at Cornell University has fairly large classes in which only Japanese is spoken, but he also has friends, a local eating establishment, and close teachers to practice the language.</p>

<p>I have self-studied in Japanese for quite a while now, so although I am more upper-intermediate than anything, I know for certain that no matter how advanced I am, I need to adapt to however the course is taught, which could be quite a struggle for anyone. But my main concern is exposure; I've heard that the concentration of Asian students at Nova is not very impressive (somewhere around 5%?), so even if I could go out of town and into a local town or area in Philly with a high concentration of Japanese speakers, businesses, restaurants, or anything, that would be perfect.</p>

2

<p>Keep your anti-caucasian sentiment to yourself!</p>

3

<p>Hehe, trust me I’m not like that at all xP</p>

4

<p>Good questions. My daughter has the same intentions, but plans to concentrate on Mandarin which she has also self studied for a few years. She’s gotten into some great schools that appear to have stronger, better known Asian Language programs than Nova, but has met with a couple of professors and feels that Nova provides a solid 4year language/cultural curriculum, which, combined with a strong emphasis on study abroad, should work out very well. </p>

<p>My impression is that both of you will want to tap into some of the resources available in Philly to round out your experiences, but academically speaking, Nova offers a fairly good selection of courses and the professors will provide a lot of support.</p>