Harvard has an abundance of international opportunities for students.
I spent the summer after my first year at Harvard in Kyoto, Japan, and I can safely say that it was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life thus far! Some of my closest friends are members of student clubs that sponsor trips to Asia, the Middle East, and more. The college itself also provides several opportunities for students to participate in programs overseas through the Office of International Education (OIE) and the academic departments. Studying abroad during the semester or over breaks is a very popular option among Harvard students.
My Path from Harvard to Kyoto
Growing up in Taiwan, 3 hour plane flights made frequent family vacations in Japan some of the highlights of my childhood. From scavenging the 10 floors of Japanese discount store, Don Quijote, to taste testing various yogurt drink flavors at the convenience store, Lawson, I would piece together Chinese characters scattered in between the hiragana Japanese alphabet to decipher meanings on product labels. It was not until my time at Harvard that I had the opportunity to formally enroll in a language course; Japanese was my immediate first choice.
I absolutely loved Japanese at Harvard! I especially appreciated that it balanced my other courses in Econ, Math, and Gov. For example, Japanese would meet every day for an hour as opposed to Econ, which would meet twice a week for longer sessions at a time. Japanese class assignments were shorter and more frequent, whereas my other classes would emphasize weekly and even monthly assignments. Since classes were small and discussion-based, I got to know a lot of my fellow classmates very well and grew close with my Professors too.
Harvard offers a Language Citation program, which certifies that citation-holders are proficient in a foreign language to an advanced level at Harvard. I therefore decided to accelerate this process and spend my summer in Kyoto, Japan under a full scholarship granted by Harvard’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. Thanks to the help of my professors and academic advisor throughout my application process, I was on my way to Japan fully on Harvard’s dime!
My Time in Kyoto
Looking back, my summer in Kyoto was a perfect mix of routine and excitement. I woke up early every morning at 7:45am to eat breakfast and get ready for class before catching a train with my classmates at 8:20am.
Classes ran from 9:00am to 12:00pm, and sometimes we were invited to guest lectures and other activities afterwards. Classes are split into three sessions, one to review the grammar structures we previewed the night before, the second to practice our reading comprehension, and the last to engage in dialogue with Japanese college students attending Doshisha University, where classes were held. After class ends, I had lunch with my classmates and explore anywhere in Kyoto for the rest of the afternoon!
Since our classes ran at an accelerated pace, we were learning a semester’s worth of content every 4 weeks. As a result, daily cafe visits in the evening to learn 5-6 new grammar structures and ~50 new vocabulary words were a must. Some of my favorite late nights were spent with my friends at the Komeda downstairs of our apartment building.
From cafes and shopping districts to temples and local markets, there were endless ways to spend our time. I discovered my favorite spot, Nanzenji Temple located in northern Kyoto, with a Japanese student I met through my program. I highly recommend everyone check it out! Another highlight of my trip was seeing the earliest screening of the last Studio Ghibli film “The Boy and the Heron” before its U.S. screening.
Continuing Japanese Learning Back at Harvard
After coming back to campus, I tested out of second year Japanese and met a new group of classmates in third year Japanese. My class was even smaller than before, and this year we focused on learning Japanese literature analysis rather than conversational dialogue. Thanks to my summer in Kyoto, I went from learning basic sentences to understanding popular short stories, opinion articles on Japan’s nuclear waste problem, and film critiques on Studio Ghibli productions all within slightly over a year!
Reflections
My summer immersion in Kyoto was one of the most rewarding experiences I could have asked for. It’s the fastest way to learn a language, and I made great friends from all over the U.S. with the same interests as me. The Japanese language and studies department at Harvard has also provided me with a great tight-knit community for my past two years here. I wouldn’t have spent my summer any other way!
