The aftermath - what to do to get into Momoyama Daigaku.

So the deadline for the application for the Non-EU-exchange scholar ship was around October. And then we had to wait until December to go to the interview. Actually, you only have two minutes to tell them why you decided on a certain university. Our teacher (Prof. Manzenreiter) also asked us one or two questions in Japanese and that's it. There were 4 other applicants with me in the room. No stress about the interview, it's actually very nice and chilled. They just ask you about your dreams to make sure you are serious about going there, I guess. After that interview, it was time to wait again. Shortly after the interview we recieved an e-mail that told us to which university they recommended us to, and with that I was already certain, that if I'd get to go to Japan, it would be Osaka. Together with my friend Tea - oh yeah!

So after that, we had to wait until ~March. Because that's what Momoyama is. They are chilled and nice and made us wait for our next application. We had to fill out a lot of stuff. If I don't remember everything, I'm sorry. But the important stuff will probably be included.

COE

The COE is your application for the alien registration aka. visa. You will have to fill this out before going to Japan and send it to your university. They will go to the right office to get you registered for a student visa. Then they send you back your COE and you have to go to the Japanese embassy in your country. There you have to fill out another form, give the form you recieved plus your passport and a picture of you and the next day your visa is ready to be picked up. Please don't forget it when you board the plane. You will need it when you get out of the airport in Japan. With that, you are a legal temporary citicen of Japan and can legally live here. If you don't have it before you arrive, you will only get a tourist visa and will need to leave Japan after 3 months. (or you have to go to the office and get the student visa yourself, but that's rather hard and unneccesary.)

Part-time job application

So our university gave us a form, with which we could also apply for working part time in Japan. You also have to give this form to the people at the airport after you arrive, so please don't forget it.

Health certificate

This one was really bad. They want to know so many things to see if you are healthy. You have to be vaccinated against anything - chicken pox, pertussis, measels, mumps, rubella, diphteria, etc. And you have to get your lungs screened and take an extra tuberculosis test. So yeah, a lot of needles for me, since I lost my vaccinates-book years ago and with that had to get my blood drawn and tested for my health certificate. Aside from that, it's not so bad.
A hint for Austrian students: Der Tuberkulosetest und das Lungenröntgen sind bei der MA38 in Favoriten gar nicht so teuer! Ich glaub insgesamt waren es so um die 40 Euro? Kommt euch vermutlich billiger, als zum Facharzt zu gehen. Außer euer Hausarzt schreibt euch eine kleine Lüge auf die Überweisung á la "Verdacht auf Lungenentzündung"...

Buddy application

If you want, you can apply for a buddy. The rules sound horrible at first (only meeting outside, you have to meet once a week etc.) but in the end, it's nothing like that. You can apply for a buddy and will get sorted into a buddy group. So there are 5 exchange students and 5 japanese students and you can write to all of the buddies. I actually did, only got response from 3 of them and until now (nearly 4 weeks after arrival) I've only met one of them. We are officially meeting all of our buddies at the welcome party on 24th of September - the start of this semester.

Homestay

There is also a homestay, you can attend! And fear not, it's for free! We didn't know, but they still let us apply later. So hopefully, we'll be able to get a nice homestay for a weekend. If you're not sure if you want to take it or not: take it. It's probably a good chance to actually use japanese.

National Insurance & Momoyama Insurance

 Aside from the national insurance, you also have to take the Momoyama insurance. The Momoyama one will pay for 70% of your expenses in case you might need a doctor and more. You have to fill out that form and send it to them, or you won't be accepted. It sounds useless, but it's actually good. Believe me.

I guess that were the most important things. Now we only have left how to find a good flight to Japan and what to think about while packing... See you soon!
 

Application, a process full of decision...

Hello, everyone!
This post will be full of information about Tea and my application process. There will also be tips on what to consider and how to find the information you're looking for.

Before you can start your exchange year, of course there are many things to consider... What university, what kind of scholarship etc.

So, if you study Japanologie at the Universtiy of Vienna, your application process will probably be 99% similar. If you study something else, this might help you but not be 100% the same. And if you're from another country, I can't guarantee anything. But it can't be that different.

For Japanologie students, we have partner universities. They are listed here. Best would be to just go there and check out the homepages, see where they are located at etc. For example all the "Tokyo" universities might not be as "Tokyo" as you consider them. Of course, Tokyo is big, but for most of the universities, you'd have to go 1 hour by train until you're in Shibuya. Of course that's only the main building, but you probably won't live there but somewhere further away from the university... So please considert that while applying. If you're curious about Momoyama, that will have to wait for another blogpost...
While you're at the homepage, you could also do some research on the costs of the dorms, facilities that the university has etc. It will come in handy later for the application.

Scholar ship - Non EU Exchange

Now, there are different kinds of scholar ships. I bet nobody will go alone and pay all the school fees. They are freaking high and only rich people could afford that. Thank god there are scholar ships! In Austria, there are two that help you when going to Japan. One of them is the Non-EU-Exchange Program (former joint-study). For more information read here!
They give you a lot of information already but some of them are not all that detailed. That's what I'm here for! Apparently, you will need this stuff if you apply there:

•    Application form with a passport photograph
•    Typewritten curriculum vitae / résumé
•    Typewritten statement of purpose: please write a 1 page essay per partner
      university stating your reasons why you want to study there (use a
      separate paper for each university!). Be specific in relating those reasons to
      your past and current academic and extra-curricular experience and your
      goals in the future.
•    Study plan: list 4 to 5 courses (per semester/term) for each university
      you indicated (just the number and the title of the courses). Please use a
      separate paper for each university!
•    Two letters of recommendation (Empfehlungsschreiben) by professors of the
      University of Vienna
•    Transcript of records: “Sammelzeugnis” in German
•    Copy of diploma examination certificate ("1. Diplomprüfungszeugnis"), if
      applicable/
•    Copy of bachelor’s certificate, if applicable
•    Proof of required language skills (see information sheet), e.g. TOEFL or
      IELTS score report

Here starts the fun. Two weeks or three weeks, let's be good and say one month before application end, they send you the information on what they need from you, if you want to go to Japan. You can apply for three universities and have to rank them. While you rank them, you still have to write a good statement of purpose. So you have to make them all look good and be determined to go exactly there! So, in the end, here comes in handy what I told you before. Since you already know some courses, the dorms, facilities etc you can write down why you want to go there using that information. For example, I decided on Momoyama because they were in Osaka - I've been to Tokyo 3 times already, so I wanted to see something new. And because their courses are very much to my liking - a lot about movies and TV. Since I want to work in the media world in the future, those came in handy. Even looking at the old course list is of great help. Also, since you have to write up a study plan. When writing the study plan, please consider that you'll also have to reach a certain amount of credits. For this scholar ship, it's necessary to reach those credits or you'll have to pay back the whole amount you recieved.

And lastly, the worst parts are the letters of recommendation and the Sammelzeugnis. Sammelzeugnis is just a matter of time - the office isn't always open, and since I was working and studying a lot during that time, I hardly found the right moment to go there. So getting that was hard for me. And the letters of recommendation are nice and easy, but be aware that you shouldn't wait too long for asking a teacher! They will need time to write it for you and if you get to 2 days before the deadline and are like "Please write something good about me!?", then they probably won't be amused.

Here is an extra tip for the study plan. I really had a hard time searching for them, since the universities won't ever put up their course list one year in advance. One of my co-students told me: "Simply write UNIVERSITY NAME course list" into google, and that's it. It didn't really work out for all universities, but it should help a bit. For Momoyama, you can find the course list here in the Course Book.

After that, you will have a tiny interview with other applicants. I can't tell you about other years, but this year, all 19 applicants were accepted and are now in Japan.
What you get is very simple: 4.000 € financial help (400 € per month (=9 study months) + 400 € for the flight).
Acceptance into one of the universities. The nice part is, if you apply for three universities that are popular and they seem like they can't really send you there, they will ask you if it would be okay to send you to another university. If you're like me, you'll probably also be like "I don't care which university, just send me to Japan!"

Scholar ship japanese embassy

The second one I applied for was the scholarship from the japanese embassy. You will find all the imporant information on their homepage, so drop by there!
I only have one tiny advice: Be a good student. Like, really. If your grades are only so-so, you shouldn't stress yourself out with the interview and the test. On the other side, it was a nice experience, so you might want to try it anyway. The interview will be held in Japanese only, the test is also in Japanese and it has 3 parts. A is the beginners part. Very easy and nice. B is the level I am on, so I probably already made a looot of mistakes during that part. And C is like where you have to be fluent or something, because I hardly could understand the Kanji in there. Most of the parts are grammar questions, for every part there are some Kanji you have to write/write down the reading. And one part is a reading test, where you have to answer the questions afterwards. I didn't make it, but if you look at the money you'll get, it's worth trying it. Also, they will pay your flight AND you'll be one of two students who made it for this kind of scholar ship.

So this was the first round of paperwork. I will try to upload my applications somewhere (if I find them... *cough* I think I left them on my computer in Vienna >.<) so you can see what stupid stuff I wrote.

With that, またね！

Introduction of an exchange student in Japan

Hello everyone!
I'm Martina and since two weeks I'm an 留学生(=ryugakusei, aka exchange student) at Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku in Osaka.

With this blog, I want to help everyone who also wants to study in Japan. Originally I planned on putting up videos of me and my friend Tea (who I will probably mention a lot on here, since we planned our study abroad together and actually are here together now), but in the end, I figured I would be too lazy and in the end, it's better to have advice as a text anyway...

Let me introduce myself shortly, so that you won't be following a ghost from here on.

Right now, I'm 25 years old, an Austrian female and I've dreamt of coming to Japan since I'm a child. It wasn't until my high-school graduation that I decided that I really want to study Japanese language and culture. Before, I always asked myself what kind of work I could end up doing with that kind of degree and that it would probably be bad... But I threw away all my worries and here I am, trying to reach my dream. I also started to study Korean langauge and culture, but obviously that isn't my destiny, since I lack the Korean skill, somehow... But I won't give up!

To be honest, I'm a fangirl. I love Johnny's, K-POP, J-POP, asian drama... But fear not, I will probably not include too much of my fangirly obsession in my posts, since I can do that elsewhere and it doesn't really have anything to do with my study abroad.

My reason for opening this blog isn't really to keep in touch with friends, but rather to help everyone. While applying for Momoyama Daigaku, I was really frustratet. There were no informations and even though our university (University of Vienna) tried to help us, we weren't helped at all. Even former exchange students weren't that big of an help because there were all like "Oh, I just did it like it was..." or "Ugh, that's so long ago, I don't even remember anymore."
So that I won't forget, here you have a blog with all the things we did before coming here and the things we had to do right after we came and before we left. Practically, all the things we did that are important will be posted here. I hope.

As I mentioned, I'm from Austria, Vienna to be particular. So a lot of the procederes are probably only useful for students from Vienna University. But still, I bet some things are also useful to students from other countries. So if this page helps you, I would be happy to read about it and your stay in Japan. ^_^

With that, enough introduction. I'll tell you about the hell of work we had while trying to apply for Japan in the next post...

With that, またね！(=mata ne, see you!)

9. September 2013