Course participant reports 2017

Most of the lectures in the course dealt with water scientifically. I didn’t take many scientific classes in the University of Tokyo, so this was a good opportunity to get new knowledge and perspectives of science. There were many topics about the global water issues. I had heard about them but I hadn’t understood them deeply.

In the lectures, I learned the details of facts, causes, expectations and solutions of the problem scientifically. Sometimes the lectures were too difficult for me so I researched about them in the reflective journals and understand them. The scientific knowledge is necessary to understand the global issues better, so this course was also good chance to enrich my understanding of the global climate change and water issues.All lectures were very interesting and especially one of the interesting topics was the groundwater contamination. I thought that there was little contamination in Japan because the technology to prevent pollution was developed and there enough regulations were arranged. However, I researched more about the situation of the groundwater contamination and found the fact that the groundwater contamination was one of the big problems in Japan. I was surprised and felt the problem closer to me. Most of the topics were related to Hungary or the global situation but I was able to relate them to Japan by researching more about them. In Japan, I learned about the situation in Japan and whole world. However, in this course, I learned about water in Hungary and whole world, so I was able to compare the same topic in Hungary, Japan and the whole world.

I also got skills in making presentation. In the first presentation, I just memorized and spoke the script. I couldn’t talk to the audience and make them feel my enthusiasm. After the presentation, I discussed with other students what the good presentation is and what we should do for our presentations. One of the ideas for me was looking at the audience. Before this course, I had tried presentation only twice. I got nervous in front of the audience and often gazed at the screen, so I decided to try to look at the audience in the second presentation.

For my second presentation, of course I made, memorized the script and practiced speaking with intonation to pass my enthusiasm to the audience. Though I got a little nervous in the second presentation I presented better than the first one. In addition to that, I referred to opinions by students after the first presentation and tried to explain Japanese history clearly and simply because most of Hungarian students were not familiar to Japanese history. And one of the members in the first presentation used the good pictures in the slides, so I tried to make good use of pictures in the second presentation.

Seoul National University Short-term Summer Programme Report

Author Yuri Hayakawa
Department Faculty of Liberal Arts, 2nd Year

This summer, I took part in a twenty day exchange programme at Seoul National University. We had four hours of language classes in the morning, lead by three teachers from the language education institute. The classes were pretty much aligned with the textbooks, started with a quiz each time, and involved role plays and partner work.

Upon returing home, I am still in touch with the people I became close to during the programme. Among them, there are some who became much more interested in Japan through this exchange and told me that they want to come and visit one day. Being there allowed me to experience firsthand the culture and atmosphere of the country, as well as the warmth of the Korean people, which also furthered my own interest in Korea. Although there is still a lot I do not know, and have not seen, I would like to return to Korea in the near future to deepen my understanding of the country and make more connections with Korean people.

The ability to gain a newfound love for Korea, and Korean friends, crossing beyond national borders and nationality is an irreplaceable experience which I was able to have through this international exchange programme.