The First Week of Classes

On May 14th, we visited the National Institute of Technology, Akashi College, or NITAC, for short, for the first time. Despite feeling exhausted from travelling the day before, I was nevertheless excited and anxious to meet the students. After a surprise greeting from the students, we were soon split off into our groups for classes.

My group, who was in mechanical engineering, was given the opportunity to see they work in a factory-esque area within school grounds. Now, when I saw this, two things came to mind: one, it’s amazing how hands-on the school is, having the students actually assemble motorcycles and create machine parts as part of their education, and two, why don’t more schools teach like this? It was so interesting to watch them study practical applications to the course they chose and actually test it out for themselves.

I met my buddy, Yuka Nagasawa. At first, we were shy around each other, but eventually, we warmed up and became friends. I also met the other Japanese students that were to be our classmates, and I was surprised by how friendly they were even though our teachers told us beforehand that they were shy towards us. Our group quickly became fast friends with each other, and it felt as if we had known each other for years.

The rest of the week was just as interesting. Although the classes were in Japanese, they were kind enough to prepare English material for us to read, and Yuka also helped me understand the lesson; or at least, have an idea of what was going on.

I am very glad to have been given this opportunity to visit this wonderful school and meet such kind and lovely students that will always be my friends, and I cannot wait for them to come visit us this September so I may return the fav