#DaysInJapan: The Perks of Living Abroad

Last week at January 27th at lunch time, we, the international student who study at TUAT such as AIMS and IEAS are invited to join the lunch with Korean and Mongols high school student at TUAT 50 Years Memorial Hall. At there, we can meet the chosen student from each school in Korea and Mongol and had a small talk with them while having a lunch.

The program they joined were SAKURA Science High School program, which are held by the Japan ministry. The students who can join this program are the 2 top student at each school, chosen by their total grades and English grades. In this program, they visited some university and places which is related to their study in science. So actually they were also students from another country that were joined this SAKURA program who visited Japan, but they went to another university related to their field of study.

The event were started at 12:00 and opened by the head of international affair study of TUAT. He talked about the good of high spirit of study abroad which already haven by the high school students, and also the invitation and big welcome to to study in Japan especially in TUAT. After that, we started our lunch.

While had a lunch, I talked with some of Korean students. Who I talked with the most are two students from a high school in Busan and Daejon. They were from different high school and meet for the first time in this program. The one from Busan is study in chemistry, and the one from Daejon is study about physics. The one who are very talkative is the one from a high school in Busan who named Se-Eun. She talked about the competitive atmosphere while studying in Korea, her interest to study in the chemistry related major, the weather difference between countries, and other topics. We also know from them what the difference between Japan and Korea, which we think all the same and similar all the way. When we asked about their interest to study abroad, they have a very big interest, but mostly in US.

Se-Eun from Busan, Korea

The things I got from the talk with them are the people who ever live or going abroad have a big confidence compared to the other who didn’t. The student, especially See-Eun, the high school student from Busan was ever lived in UK for a while in the past. That’s why I find her more talkative than her friend, and shes more likely to shared so many things with us. And the difference also of course she speak English very fluent. I think the people who ever lived abroad also have an open mind, so they can accept the difference between people and countries, and even have a big curiosity about that differences and ask so many questions. They always want to know what happened in other country when something happens, how their managed it, the weather and environment difference, culture, and so on.

That thing actually are very good, because it means, the program like this, and any other program that allowed people to go or study in another country are giving so many advantages. It make us more confident talk with different people, and make us open-minded. So once people ever going abroad, for example the students joined the Sakura program, after they come back to their own country, they will always have an interest to study abroad to have more new experience and fill their curiosity and that is very good for their future.