Japan Internships with Meiji Internships

"My time at Meiji Internships was simply incredible! From learning important Japanese phrases to putting on a kimono, pounding mochi, enjoying traditional matscha tea and much more. Every experience was simply breathtaking. The Meiji Internships not only helped me understand Japanese culture and language, but also gave me unforgettable experiences that I will always remember.
Thanks for the nice time."

Meine Zeit an der Meiji Internships war einfach unglaublich! Angefangen beim Erlernen wichtiger japanischer Phrasen bis hin zum Anziehen eines Kimonos, dem stampfen von Mochi, dem Genießen von traditionellem Matscha-Tee und vielem mehr. Jede Erfahrung war einfach atemberaubend. Die Meiji Internships haben mir nicht nur geholfen, die japanische Kultur und Sprache zu verstehen, sondern haben mir auch unvergessliche Erlebnisse beschert, an die ich mich immer erinnern werde.
Danke für die schöne Zeit.

I had the incredible opportunity to participate in a 4-week internship at Meiji in Fukuoka, Japan. During my stay, I immersed myself in Japanese culture through various enriching activities. I joined a traditional tea ceremony, wore a classic Kimono around the town, and explored local temples, which deepened my appreciation for Japan's rich heritage.

Japanese everyday life amazed me with its harmonious blend of modernity and tradition. I admired the politeness of the locals, their efficient transportation system, and the meticulous attention to detail in every aspect of daily living.

Fukuoka's cuisine was a culinary journey in itself. I indulged in Hakata ramen originating from here, fresh sashimi, and unique street food like mentaiko (spicy cod roe). Every meal was an explosion of flavor, reflecting the region's diverse gastronomic heritage.

Overall, this internship was a profound cultural experience that left me with cherished memories and a newfound admiration for Japan.

My time in Fukuoka was amazing! The city exceeded all my expectations.
The people in Fukuoka were incredibly friendly and helpful. I always felt welcomed and had many inspiring conversations that broadened my horizons. The local food was delicious, from mouth-watering ramen to fresh seafood. I'll never forget those culinary experiences.
The natural beauty around Fukuoka was also stunning. The picturesque beaches and lush greenery were perfect for escaping the city hustle and enjoying nature's wonders.
Overall, my time in Fukuoka was enriching. The mix of cultural richness, culinary delights, and warm hospitality created lasting memories. I can't wait to come back one day and explore more of this fascinating city."

I had a really great experience interning in Tokyo this year. Robert, the program advisor working at Meiji, was super helpful right from the beginning, giving me a clear picture of what to expect from the program. He did a great job coordinating with me and he introduced me to a good selection of different potential host companies.

I got placed in a good medium-sized trading company in Tokyo, where I got to do a mix of things like translation, interpretation, stock management, quality control, and helping with meetings and events. My supervisor was very experienced, she taught me so much over the course of just 4 months. My other colleagues were very friendly and skilled, making the work environment enjoyable. I learned a lot during my stay in Tokyo about Japanese business culture and its fundamental differences from the more Western style of doing business that I had grown so used to back home. It wasn't my first time in Tokyo, but I felt like I got to know a different side of the city. My colleagues were kind enough to take me to all the good local restaurants and izakaya, it really gave a positive spin to my experience outside of work.

Looking back, I can say the experience gave me more than just a boost for my resume. It was a once in a lifetime experience that taught me a lot about both Japan and myself as well.
Robert nailed the match with the host company, and that personal touch really made a difference. Meiji Internships played a big role in making my internship in Tokyo go really smoothly, and for that I am very grateful

I had a really great experience interning in Tokyo this year. Robert, the program advisor working at Meiji Internships, was super helpful right from the beginning, giving me a clear picture of what to expect from the program. He did a great job coordinating with me and he introduced me to a good selection of different potential host companies.

I got placed in a good medium-sized trading company in Tokyo, where I got to do a mix of things like translation, interpretation, stock management, quality control, and helping with meetings and events. My supervisor was very experienced, she taught me so much over the course of just 4 months. My other colleagues were very friendly and skilled, making the work environment enjoyable. I learned a lot during my stay in Tokyo about Japanese business culture and its fundamental differences from the more Western style of doing business that I had grown so used to back home. It wasn't my first time in Tokyo, but I felt like I got to know a different side of the city. My colleagues were kind enough to take me to all the good local restaurants and izakaya, it really gave a positive spin to my experience outside of work.

Looking back, I can say the experience gave me more than just a boost for my resume. Robert nailed the match with the host company, and that personal touch really made a difference.
Meiji Internships played a big role in making my internship in Tokyo go really smoothly, and for that I am very grateful

unfortunately, my review of Meiji is not going to be the most positive, but hopefully people reading who are thinking of doing an internship with Meiji will take what i say into consideration.
i first contacted Meiji in September of 2022, and i wanted to start my internship in Japan by March 2023. i have never been to university and i was looking to do an internship in the fashion field because i was considering going to study fashion at a higher level after i finished the internship. upon meeting with Meiji they asked me if i had been to university, and when i told them i hadnt, they informed me i wouldnt be able to do an internship in the field i wanted because of my lack of university degree. in hindsight, i understand this, as fashion is a specialised subject and should require a bit of prior experience, however there was nothing on Meiji's website that could have informed me of this. they present you with a long list of possible paths for you to choose, only for you to be extremely limited in your options if you have not/are not in university. you may be thinking that the whole point of doing an internship with Meiji is to gain a university accredited internship, however in their FAQs they explicitly say that you do not need to be enrolled in a university or have a university degree, they only say you need to be between ages 17 and 30. so after being told i wouldnt be able to do my chosen internship, i was told i had 4 options; childcare, hospitality and tourism, PR and marketing, and business development. obviously none of these were what i had intended, but i decided to go ahead and continue with the internship as it would be good experience to put on my CV anyhow. after choosing my fields and paying the deposit to Meiji, i didnt hear anything back about an interview until late December. this was fine because i knew that contacting and setting up interviews with companies would take some time. my first interview with my potential host company unfortunately couldnt go ahead because of a technical fault, so i contacted Meiji to see if they could reschedule the interview. now its important to remember that the organisation of my internship fell over christmas and new year, so i was expecting some traffic around this time. i waited until the 7th of January to see if i got any news from Meiji but i hadnt received any emails from them. i waited another week just in case they were being unintentionally slow with getting back to me. after i had received nothing from them again i decided to email them, simply asking if they'd heard anything and that i'd really appreciate a response. after sending this email i wait a week but i still dont receive any reply. i sent them another prompt, being sure to not sound pushy or rude, yet i still didnt get a reply from them. after another week i sent them another email, this time i was pretty frustrated and annoyed considering it was the beginning of february and i was meant to be starting in March and i still had no solid arrangements in place. im not ashamed to say my email was angry considering they had left me in the dark for a whole month, while they had been active on their social media platforms, therefore telling me they were in fact working, and just ignoring my emails. after i sent this email i received a response a day later, confirming my rescheduled interview. after my interview i was really excited because i really liked the sound of the company that interviewed me and i was ready to go. 3 weeks go by and its a couple of weeks before i'm meant to start and i had no news from Meiji or my host company. i understand that the host company were probably just being unintentionally slow with getting back to me, but i now had no time left before i was meant to travel. after informing Meiji of my worries they told me that i would have to pay an admin fee of about £150 to change the date of my internship. i had to pay this because THEY were too slow to get back to me in the new year. i had to pay them for their incompetence. this was extremely out of line to me but i paid the fee nonetheless just to avoid any kind of dispute or drama. luckily in the next couple of weeks i was told that the company i interviewed with wanted to host my internship. i gladly accepted and paid the full amount of money to secure my accommodation. i booked my flights and contacted Meiji again to tell them my flight information. after sending it i received an email about a week later asking me to send my flight details to them. this was annoying to me but i sent the details again anyway. ANOTHER week later they send me another email again asking me to send my flight details. i send them one last time and luckily they didnt ask for them again. all through this i have not had any information about where i will be living. this makes me nervous because i believe it's an early foot that needs to drop when travelling abroad, and yet here i am 2 weeks from leaving for Japan, a country i have never been to before, and i have no idea where ill be living for 3 months. Meiji continue in this fashion until 5 days before my flight to give me the details of my accommodation. and this is after i have asked them multiple times to confirm my accommodation. this may have been completely my fault, but i was under the impression that i would be living with other Meiji interns after reading a lot of reviews, as well as Meiji's implication on their website that i would be meeting plenty of other interns/i would make plenty of friends. i emailed them to confirm this and they told me they had no idea who i would be living with, and that it could be anyone from foreigners to native Japanese people. at this point, i was strongly considering cancelling the whole thing because of Meiji's incompetence and slow responses. they consistently let me down with helping me, making me pay a fee because of their own issues, and then repeatedly leaving me in the dark. in the end i decided to see it through and go anyway because losing the money at this point would be a real problem. to their credit, Meiji did organise a car to pick me up at the airport and take me to my accommodation, and locate me in a great neighbourhood that was very safe and i was never worried about being a young solo female traveller. after i landed in Tokyo they kept their correspondence with me to a minimum. they pretty much dropped me in and left me to figure everything out by myself. they did supply me with a travel card and a japanese sim card which was greatly appreciated, but in terms of getting to my office i was completely left to figure it out by myself. i understand that natives of Japan don't realise that navigating Tokyo as a foreigner is extremely challenging and daunting, but i think they should have taken into account that i am a young woman in a foreign country to which ive never been and provided me with a little more support. in terms of my actual internship, i think it was pretty disappointing. their would be periods where i had absolutely no work, and my boss was near impossible to get into contact with as she was almost always travelling. when i did have work it was a pleasure and genuinely so enjoyable, but those times were few and far-between. bear in mind i was here for 3 months. the quiet moments were almost silent and the hectic moments were incredibly overwhelming and stressful. the things i enjoyed about my internship had nothing to do with Meiji, so i can't give them too much praise. the parts that were the best were the things that i had sought out and done myself. upon leaving Tokyo i received no emails from Meiji i expected some admin work i had to do for leaving my accommodation, or just a friendly email to say goodbye, but there was radio silence on their end. it was a very bittersweet end to my time in Japan because of this. i would say to anyone planning to go with Meiji to Japan that i think you'll have a better time going independently, or with another internship company, as Meiji really dont give you anything you couldnt have gotten yourself. i loved the country and Japan really is a wonderful place, but this isnt a review of Japan, this is a review of Meiji Internships. the one word i would associate with Meiji is disorganised. they consistently let me down and barely offered me any support. on the plus side, this experience is sure to make you feel more independent and help you grow as a person. im willing to admit that i'm an outlier, as almost everyone else ive seen who used Meiji absolutely loved them, but that just wasnt the case for me. i hope this review has helped potential travellers make a decision about using Meiji.

Kyoto was really an eye opening experience that really helped me so much to learn about myself, immerse traditional Japanese culture and follow my passion for Sadou (Japanese tea ceremony). I intended to take a two months off from my studies and wanted to experience more about Japan than just do the standard traveling and language learning. When I was looking for internship opportunities, I came across Meiji and they seem to offer me exactly what I was looking for. My focus was very broad and my primary goal was to get to know the working mentality and corporate values of Japanese companies. But at the same time I did not have the necessary skills to perform very specialized tasks. So after the initial consultation we decided together on a hotel & tourism internship. They found me a really nice traditional Ryokan where I was able to serve many different foreign customers in traditional kimono wearing and also learned about the deep meaning of Omotenashi (genuine customer service). It will be too long to describe all the memorable experiences I had but Kyoto really remains a special place in my heart and I recommend it to anybody who wants to see the “real Japan”. I feel prepared for the next steps in my career and I think it was a very valuable experience.

The experience began with a Skype video call to discuss which business would work considering your interests, which I was glad to see. The interviews themselves went smoothly and I appreciated the care the staff showed towards my interests.

I speak very little Japanese, but I still managed to contribute to the company, primarily through creative marketing schemes aimed at international clients, as well as helping Japanese colleagues with their English.

I've learned a lot about how businesses work within Japan, and have gained a new perspective on the possibilities for my future career.