The Typical Experience of Japanese Students in Tokyo!
Have you ever thought of enrolling in a Japanese university or going to study abroad as an exchange student in Japan? Do you want to know what it’s like being a freshman in Tokyo? This post will explain the life of typical college students who go to school in Tokyo! Their life is in some ways similar and in some totally different from your country.
A lot of students feel excited, nervous, or anxious when they enroll in university. You are entering a totally different stage in life when you start your studies. You have so much freedom and with that more responsibility than ever! If you’re going to study abroad in Japan as an exchange student, you might feel excited and a little bit nervous about leaving your home country, friends, and university. But all of your nervousness and anxiety will go away once you start studying in Japan because Japan is an amazing country.
Freshman year at university in Tokyo is like
Before going into the topic, I’d like to share who I am and why I’m writing this for you. I’m a senior year university student in Tokyo studying computer science and I used to work as an international student advisor for a couple of years. My work was helping exchange students so that they could live and study in a positive environment. Not only helping, but becoming friends with and hanging out after class was always fun for me.
Since I talked to a lot of exchange students, I know good things and bad things about going to colleges and universities in Tokyo when compared to other countries’ colleges in different countries. So, I’d like to share some facts about freshman university life in Tokyo. During freshman year, I made a few mistakes which led to some less than good grades. So you should definitely go through this post not to make the same mistakes I did if you’re thinking about studying abroad or enrolling in a university in Japan!
Enroll in a university in Tokyo
When I was an 18 year old, right after I graduated from high school, I enrolled in my university. There are multiple ways to get into college in Japan. Most people take an entrance exam (like the ACT or SAT in the US), but how I got into my university was different. When I was a high school student, my grades were pretty good. Since my grades were high, I could simply enter my university with recommendation from the president of my high school (Endorsement, Shitei kou suisen). Some high schools have agreements with certain universities and they send selected students directly to these universities. High schools select candidates during their senior year. So technically, for enrollment I just wrote an essay and had an interview which was not intense at all compared to what other students must do sometimes.
Japanese university clubs “fraternities” and “sororities”
The first week of college life, there’s an event on campus where a lot of clubs recruit freshmen (It’s called shinnyusei kangei kai). There are a variety of clubs for sports, art, music, etc. They are a mix between greek life and a subject area club. There’s usually a common interest but the goal of the club is mostly social and usually involves a lot of drinking.You could also start a new club! I went to check out some soccer clubs because I played soccer for 12 years!
Get free meals
There were several soccer clubs. Especially in April, a lot of clubs take freshmen to izakaya as a recruitment method. The best part is freshmen don’t need to pay for anything because seniors pay most of the time. So I just went to see the club and go to izakaya. I mean why would I miss free meals and drinks and the opportunity to get to know people.
In my university some clubs are very popular so sometimes you can’t join the club that you want to. It’s better to make connections with seniors by joining their events. What I heard from one of my seniors was that if you’re kawaii then you can join, which is pretty shitty, but also kind of funny. Also, I realized that some clubs are pretty intense about drinking and partying at izakaya. I saw many seniors throwing up in the bathroom because Japanese college students really like playing drinking games. (If you want to know some affordable izakaya which Japanese college students usually hang out, please read this article.)
After I joined a bunch of parties at different kinds of clubs, I decided to join a soccer club because there are some people who were good athletes. I joined because I genuinely wanted to play soccer with them, but I kinda hated drinking with the club because they wanted to drink until everyone was very drunk. There are amazing foods at the izakaya and I really enjoyed it but I eventually threw up almost every single time. I always felt sick when I went home. Also, some guys would try to get girls drunk, so that something might happen, which is a pretty terrible thing to do.
Why I quit the club
When I became a sophomore, I quit the club for two reasons. First, clubs cost a lot of money. You have to pay for your club uniforms if you’re in a sports club, in addition to other expenses such as renting facilities to play sports and travel expenses. Moreover, the clubs usually go on short trips every three months to play soccer and drink which costs a lot because it’s mainly just drinking for several days in a row. As a result of spending a lot money for the club and partying, despite having a part-time job, I didn’t save any money at all. All the money I made just went down the toilet (literally).
Second, I was not able to focus on studying. A lot of clubs go to izakaya on weekdays as well even if you have a class the next morning. It was fun at the time I was drinking at izakaya but it was not fun at all to go to the class in the morning without sleeping. It made me so exhausted. Sometimes, I stayed up all night and went to a class right from izakaya, which was insane and so tiring. Even if you made it to the class, all you could do during class was trying not to fall asleep. This is really bad. I know a lot of people ended up skipping class and dropping courses because of this.
To join or not to join
I quit the club eventually, but I enjoyed hanging out with a lot of new people! I highly recommend going to the party for freshmen in April and making new friends there! You should just think twice about whether you want to join a club or not! This decision affects your college life. A lot of people drop courses and have to take the same class again because of clubs.
Thank you for reading this post. Let me know if you have any related questions. I’d love to help you in your college life! Don’t forget to have fun! Please also check this article and learn about how the Japanese higher education system works. Education system in Japan is probably completely different from your home country.