Tanaka & Green Scholarship Essay – Adam Gruner

Studying in Japan for a year was a life-changing experience both personally and academically. This experience marked the first time I have lived away from my parents, and as a result of this drastic shakeup in my living situation, I feel much more confident in my ability to navigate the world as an independent adult going forward. I made many new friends in this one-year period as well, got close to several professors, and I hope to continue to expand my network in Japan going forward. I was academically challenged by the rigorous nature and advanced level of my Japanese classes. These immersion classes not only vastly improved my Japanese skills, but they also taught me several academic styles unique to the Japanese education system, which I hope to utilize at the graduate level in Japan in the near future.  Below I will detail the three main ways this experience was a success.  

The Personal Realm

Upon landing in Tokyo, I was exhilarated as my long-held dream of going to Japan had come true. I must have dreamed at least 10 times in the previous 5 years about the moment I had finally arrived in Japan, and each and every time, it was surreal. It was even more surreal in real life. However, at the same time, for as much as I had learned about Japan and Japanese over the years, I also quickly realized that a lot of what I understood was not the practical knowledge needed in everyday interactions or situations, but was more akin to the knowledge of an extremely well-informed tourist. However, my year in Japan enabled me to drastically improve my understanding of Japanese vocabulary related to medical visits, banking, making reservations, Izakaya dish names, and more. Furthermore, I got a much better sense of the culture and the ways that Japanese institutions work through my personal experience of having to navigate everything on my own for the first time without my parents, doing it in a foreign country, and doing it all in Japanese. In other words, by traveling extensively (19 prefectures), and by living in Japan for a year, I simultaneously bettered my Japanese language skills, adulting skills, and my understanding of Japanese society. During this one year abroad, I was also a lot more social than usual. The fantastic night life of Japan’s big cities definitely helped, but I talked to a lot more people on a daily basis than I have for most of my life, and I look to continue doing this going forward as well.  

The Academic Realm

My Japanese classes were very rigorous and were taught all in Japanese, allowing for a total immersion experience. This was only the second time I had been able to take 100% Japanese language (not literature, history, or culture) classes all in Japanese, as I was able to take Japanese 302 at the University of Maryland (UMD). At Waseda, I took 8 such Japanese classes in two semesters, which will allow me to complete all the credits needed for my Japanese major. Without this year abroad this would have been much harder to do due to my upper-intermediate- advanced level proficiency in Japanese, and a lack of classes available at UMD at that level. Aside from getting the necessary credits, improving my Japanese speaking, debating, and Kanji writing abilities, I also learned a lot about the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. regarding Happyou (presentations), as well as several different academic writing styles. I learned in particular, a Japanese style of taking a text and rewriting it mostly using the author’s original words, while reducing the word count by half or more. This was unlike the way I was taught to summarize passages in the U.S., and I really struggled knowing what to cut out the first few times, getting the hang of it at the end. All this to say, not only did I learn a lot of Japanese generally, but I also got my first step into the door in terms of my readiness for the Japanese academic world, a necessary bit of preparation for my ability to succeed in graduate school in Japan.  

The Career Realm

This is a little bit more murky, but I did make some progress in a couple of ways here as well. While I did not work in Japan this time, instead prioritizing domestic travel, my studies, networking with new friends and professors, I did take the time while I was in Japan to learn how to format resumes in one of the styles accepted by most major companies in Japan. Additionally, I did attend some job fairs in order to scope out the Japanese labor market and my potential fit into it in the future. One of the several options I am strongly considering is a job in translation, and I was able to talk to a fellow student in one of my classes, who has a similar level of proficiency in Japanese as me and had a translation job while she was in Japan, and get her advice on how to land such a job, not just in Japan, but abroad as well. Several opportunities did come up where I helped translate between Japanese and English speakers (friends and strangers alike), and some of these occasions lasted several hours, giving me a taste of both the fun and excitement of translating as well as the extreme difficulty of it. One of these occasions where I did some translation on an unofficial basis, has been captured in a YouTube video, a video which I can show to potential employers in the field of translation. Finally, this year-long experience convinced me without a doubt that my future will revolve around work related to Japan, and/or work in Japan, and I will invest every fiber of my being to get back to Japan for school and work one day soon.  

In Conclusion

Getting to study in Japan was a lifelong dream that was not only full of adventure and sightseeing, but also full of learning and hard work. I grew socially, academically, and learned how to navigate the world as an independent adult, all in a second language. I hope to maintain all that I have learned and build on it by keeping in touch with all my contacts in Japan, and build new ones here by getting more involved at The Japan America Society of Washington D.C. Thank you so much for your invaluable investment in my future.