VOICES

GLAP Kaede Hoshi

Wonderful Experiences at SNU and NUS

Hello! I am Kaede Hoshi, a junior at GLAP. I studied abroad at Seoul National University (SNU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) through ACE Program. In this program, you can study in two different countries which allows you to be exposed to different national characters of each country and culture in one year. Through learning with local students at each university, I felt differences in academic culture. At SNU, students put energy into not only academics but also extracurricular activities while NUS students devote themselves to studying during a semester and do internships on holidays. It is very interesting that even though all three universities are located in Asia, the ways students think about assignments, lectures, and careers are not the same.

In both SNU and NUS, I tried to take courses that I had never taken or interested in Rikkyo University in order to explore my academic interest deeply. During the study at NUS, I took Programming Methodology which is a foundation course for learning Python. My motivation for taking this course was my very simple thought: “I want to learn something new”. Before studying abroad, I had never taken such mathematical and scientific courses in my home university because I had a fixed idea that I was not good at math and science. However, through taking the course, I realized that thought was limiting me from stepping out of my comfort zone. This course was the hardest and most difficult one among the four courses that I registered. I sometimes regretted taking this course because of its difficulty and high level of competition among students. However, I was able to score well on exams thanks to the help from my friend.

NUS has a rich nature on campus which is very different from Rikkyo University which is located at Ikebukuro, the center of Tokyo. In this video, I will introduce nature in Singapore, particularly the climate features of Japan and Singapore, and how nature coexists with cities in Singapore. I hope it helps you to understand Singapore's nature!