World Campus - Japan Program

I cannot imagine any better way to experience Japan. This program really focuses on learning about the culture, coming from the amazing host families and many opportunities to interact in the community. More than that, you meet participants from all over the world, and become part of a global community that continues long after the program is over. It has been two years since I participated, and I can still say that it has been the most influential experience of my life. Give this program a close look... you won't regret it!

This will be an unforgettable experience. It's truly a place where individuals from all walks of life and regions of the world come together and open up, sharing experiences, thoughts, and lives with others. You certainly experience Japan in a way that you would not as a tourist, forming lasting bonds with your host families, community supporters, staff and other program members. I would not say it is the most environmentally conscious program (thus the 9 on the impact), but there is no question about the good intention of the staff and community members involved. All in all, I recommend this intimate experience of Japan and a diverse group of to-be family!

I spent about three months in Japan although strangely, I have enough memories to fill a year! They are as vivid and colourful as if it was yesterday. I remember with an incredible accuracy my first thoughts when I heard about WCI; the excitement, the taste for adventure, the anticipation of learning and meeting strangers from all over the world. I also recall the uncomfortable feeling that accompanied me in the last days before I left for this life-altering trip.

The first month is about getting out of your comfort zone (pushing it further and further), making the first and most important learning about the unique Japanese culture, meeting people from all over the globe and learning from them. Life in host families, the Japanese environment and being in the program allows you to create a new life for yourself. A life in which honesty, trust and personal responsibility are at the foundation of the new character you become. Visiting incredible sites such as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Museums, the Hiroshima A-Dome and Matsumoto Castle were some of the great opportunities we had. We also had meetings with different guest lecturers such as two A-Bomb survivors; a university doctor that spoke about communication and the chairman of the board of education of Ueda. We also had the incredible chance to assist in the peace ceremony in Hiroshima on August 6th, the Ueda Washoi event and the Buddhist week in Omura! Unforgettable moments…

Having a handful of members leaving after the first month when Session 1 was finished, the priorities diverted from the initial learning to the creation of a big family in Japan. Experiential learning became internal communication learning (among the participants) and the bonds between the participants grew immensely creating a priceless international network. Also, dealing with these 14 different cultures and evolving in the Japanese culture allows you to naturally start introspecting and adjusting your thoughts, behaviours, etc, to international standards. The environment changed radically as we passed from big cities to the isolated city of Uda in the Nara prefecture. The second face of Japan was about to be revealed…

As the World Campus – Japan program came to an end, the last month in Japan became a moment of reflection about the changes and learning brought by WCI. Members shared their last memories together in what became their life in Japan. We had different important events such as the visit to one of Toyota Corporation’s manufacturing plants and the meeting with their P.R. representatives or the ExxonMobil presentation where some of us had the opportunity to communicate with important management members. Giving classes to students and assisting university courses where we would integrate or share international opinions to the topic were also on the menu. Finally, some members had the most difficult task of the program – leaving for home. The strong family created by the hard and good times of WCI made it incredibly difficult to let those people go. I myself sometimes had a hard time spending all my time with the same people every day but in the end, these friends, brothers and sisters who were part of me…. letting them go and leaving on my own was a tremendous task.

Finally, back home, it’s only then that you discover the real changes that operate in you. Your mentality changed, your knowledge increased, your interest and priorities were reorganized and you acquired (want it or not) a certain form of discipline and an energy reserve that can allow you to function more and longer than before. Besides, you now have friends and family all over the world that support you, understand you and that want to hear what you have to say. Facing your real self again, your environment and the person you became allow you to make final changes in your person and fix what had to be fixed and lets you take another great step towards wherever you are going.

To describe World Campus International in a few words, I would say: “Life changing, learning, appreciation for your own background, respect for others and yourself, lifetime opportunity and most memorable”.

If ever you are interested in WCI, please be in touch; I can only wish you can experience what I experienced as it might just change your life and in the long run change the world for the best.

Getting on well with people from other nationalities is always the biggest challenge to a number of individuals serving on various community development programs. Miss-interpretation of body language and at times language terms used is a challenge and always hinders quality inputs in most of negotiated community proposed development projects for donor consideration. My participation in the World Campus International 2007 Summer Global Educational Program helped me to gain more understanding and skills on how to innovatively collaborate in a mixed community of cultures to clearly sell my ideas with less resistance based on various differences.

The WCI program is designed to create an environment for sharing and freely accept or intelligently ignore each one's opinions with or without any physiological torture.

I greatly credit World Campus International Global Educational program that fit in almost every one's professional area and exposes everyone to extensive opportunities as well as gaining life-long knowledge and skills on how to live in a diverse community of people as friends, partners, brothers, sisters and not as enemies any more. Thank you

Robert

I took part in the WCI Japan summer program for one session a couple of years ago, and it was my second time in Japan.

The program offers some of the best opportunities to really get out and learn about Japanese traditions and day to day lives through living and bonding with your families, and the daily excursions around.

The families are all soooo excited to have you stay with them that any apprehension you feel before you start evaporates almost immediately. They often bring you to meet their family and friends in the community and are so kind its really a touching experience. Even though you normally only stay with any one particular family for about a week, by the end of your stay you'll realize what kind of attachment you've had with them, its really an amazing feeling.

WCI also provides the chance to go on various excursions to historical sites, cultural exhibitions and also visit some modern facilities in the region you're staying at. The great thing about these day trips is you never really feel like your on some normal tour, as there are activities and knowledge exchanges going on between your group and the hosts all the time.

You also get some downtime to freely explore on your own, although by the end of those 4-5 days you are usually ready to get back into the WCI swing of things! The arigatou event (Thank-you event) that you put on at the end of each stay for the host families and community was the first time I'd ever been involved in some kind of 'production', and it was really a great time for both the families and everyone in WCI putting it on.

All in all it was a great experience, if you are looking for a chance to really visit and experience Japan this is probably as close as you can get without living there, and I guarantee you'll never be wondering what to do next thanks to this fantastic program! Highly recommended!!!

My name is Daniel and last summer (2011) I went to Japan, joining the WCI program. It was the first time for me in Japan and it couldn't have been any better!

I'm currently a Japanese major student in the Netherlands. Before last summer I had never been to Japan and I felt that in order to get extra motivated to study the Japanese language and culture, I figured going to Japan would be a good way to achieve this. I didn't feel like traveling around on my own, since this required a certain level of proficiency in the Japanese language, which at that time I certainly did not have. When the WCI CEO came to the Netherlands to give a presentation about WCI, I decided to drop by and the concept of the program immediately piqued my interest; it promised to let the participants experience Japan from within, rather than as a tourist. The idea of a homestay program also appealed to me, as I wanted to improve my language skills.

Anyway, enough about my motives for joining the program, on with the review. I made a mistake when I booked my ticket, so I informed the WCI staff that I would arrive at the airport a few hours late. The WCI staff advised me to get on a bus and upon arriving at some bus stop, my host family would pick me up. I was rather stressed out because I had hardly any idea of how the bus ticket system works in Japan. At the point I started being desperate because I couldn't read more than 5% of the kanji that were displayed on the bus ticket dispenser, a staff member of WCI patted me on the back and told me they came to pick me up, which was quite a relief. This one of many examples of care, combined with all the memorable activities that the WCI staff managed to plan and the inspiring personalities that these staff members have, create a perfect base for an amazing program.

There are a few things that make the WCI program so memorable, it's uniqueness, it's focus on cultural diversity and the overall sense of opennness. Especially the latter two are the aspects of the program that left quite an impact on my life. The program attracts people from all around the world, who are all interested in exploring Japan. While exploring, I was in contact with all these different people's cultures as well. I learned a lot about the countries that my fellow participants came from and also about their cultures, ideals and thoughts. This made me more open and understanding towards other people, which I really treasure as an attained skill. It's also the openness of the people in and around the program that struck me in a positive way. People want to know about you, people want to tell you their stories and everyone is accepted as a part of the group. After a some days pass, the feeling of a family is really there. The day I left Japan, I felt like I was leaving friends that I had known for years, even though it had been just over a month. I could talk to some of these people about personal matters and they gave me more confidence. The encounters with these people made me change the way I think about some aspects of my life; I am convinced that I should take any opportunity that crosses my path and to step out of my comfort-zone, even when this doesn't appeal to be enjoyable. I also gained a lot more confidence to do this, but also in other aspects of my life.

Furthermore, I would like to express the program's uniqueness when it comes to the activities that were organised. As I stated above, this is also one of the aspects that made WCI so memorable. Due to contacts with local communities, WCI is able to give the participants access to various organisations such as schools, universities, elderly homes, hospitals, companies, dojos, temples, etc. These kinds of access also include many rare opportunities such as being able to interview city mayors, company CEOs or even an atomic bomb survivor. There's also the opportunity to help farmers in their rice fields, to give elderly or handicapped people a fun day, or to hang out with Japanese university students and have a drink with them. When going to more regular touristic spots such as temples and castles, there is often someone (a monk, a CEO, university students, etc.) that gives us a special tour or the opportunity to ask questions and get answers directly rather than from a pamphlet.

Because this is starting to look like an advert rather than a review, I suppose I should mention the bad points of the program. To be honest I have a hard time thinking of any, but if I had to name one, it would be that the program is mainly in English. Unless one makes a great effort to talk Japanese with one's host families, I think it is hard to improve Japanese conversational skills. On the other hand I really did notice a difference in my comprehension of the Japanese language and my grades at the university have only been rising since I left Japan, so I can say that one's overall proficiency is still likely to increase.

To conclude I can only emphasize how big of an impact this program had on me and how much I recommend everyone to join this program. There is so much more that defines World Campus International's amazingness that I have not been able to mention in this review, but I can assure everyone that everything I've experienced has been worth every single penny/cent/yen that I've spent on the program. The fact that I will be joining WCI again this summer, should at least prove I'm positive about the program, to say the least. Don't miss this opportunity, JOIN WCI!

Cheers,

Daniel

Life-changing. Great people. Friendships. Beatiful and fun Japan. Amazing opportunities. Huge impact. Unique program. Multicultural. Learn. JOIN WCI!

Travelling with WCJ was the best experience I've had for a VERY long time. It gives you so much by the interaction in the communities and seeing the country from the inside.
The host families are nice, and they do whatever they can, to make you feel home at their place.
The food is very different, but it's fun to challenge yourself with trying out new stuff.
I would definitely wanna go again and maybe someday I will:)