大阪大学

Before I knew I got the scholarship and would be going to Osaka, I'd been planning my year abroad around Kyoto. Obviously things are now very different.

Since Wednesday night I've been browsing on the internet, trying to find out things about Osaka University.

I'll be studying in the 日本語・日本文化研修留学生プログラム, which is designed for all Monbukagakusho (MEXT) scholars. All the courses will be taught in Japanese, and I'll be required to write a research essay in Japanese before I go back to Manchester. I guess the level of Japanese will be very high, so I'm going to struggle in the first few months, but hopefully that can make me work harder and maybe my Japanese will improve at a higher rate than if I go to Kyoto and study in its KUINEP programme (where all non-language courses are taught in English).

To be honest I don't really like the location of the university. It's not actually in Osaka city (大阪市). Of course it's in Osaka Prefecture (大阪府), but I'll be studying and living at the Minoh campus (箕面市), which is about an hour away from Osaka city centre.


より大きな地図で 大阪大学 を表示

There's nothing much around the university campus, looks like it's just a residential area. And it's at the bottom of a mountain, so I probably won't be able to cycle.

The accommodation, too, is not as good as Kyoto's. It's just a bedroom with no en-suite or kitchen facilites. Kyoto's halls of residence are all studio flats with en-suite bathroom and a small kitchen. The upside is that I'll be closer to Osaka than if I was in Kyoto, which means I'll have easier access to all the fun shopping and entertainment (can spend some of the scholarship money on Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes!). Kyoto is only about an hour away so I can still explore the old and beautiful city in the weekends.

My mum told me about her year in Nagoya University. Actually, she herself was a Monbukagakusho scholar. She said because they were government-sponsored, whenever they went on a study trip they would be greeted and treated well by officials. That probably won't happen to me since that was over 20 years ago...