Guidance Sessions

Hi guys!

Today I will talk about the guidance sessions that I've been attending for these last two weeks. Japan is a very organized country with many (to be honest, a lot of) documents and instructions. While it's a hassle to read every of these documents, it really helps you in long run as they provides all the information from the beginning. There's no orientation week when you entered Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University both for undergraduate students and graduate students, but there are several guidance sessions that you should attend. 

Information for a Successful Student Life Guidance

These are the guidance sessions:

1. Japanese Placement Test

It's not a guidance session to be honest, but rather a test to determine your starting Japanese class level from Survival I, Survival II, Communication I, Communication II, Communication III, and Communication IV according to your ability in Japanese language. This is for Graduate students, as Undergraduate students have more Japanese classes than us (they have Japanese Foundation I think). The test is divided into three different sections: participants who are good in Japanese language, participants who can write Hiragana and Katakana but only know basic Japanese language, and participants who starts Japanese language from zero (cannot write Hiragana and Katakana). At the end of the placement test they will tell you your Japanese language level.

2. Document Distribution

Here they'll give us the essential documents: Student ID Card and the Student Login ID. Student ID Card is something that you have to carry all the time: to get into AP House, APU Library, and other closed facilities. Student Login ID is used for logging in to the Wi-Fi hotspot, Campus Terminal (where all the important announcements are regarding academic events, part-time jobs, etc.) and CampusMate (student-related activities such as internship, course registration, etc.).

3. APU Library Orientation

Orientation how to use the library: the automatic rent and return system (it's really nice!), audio visual room, group study room, intensive study room, etc. The library itself is divided into six areas in two floors: the 'Lively' Ocean floor (where you are allowed to speak) and the 'Silent' Forest floor (where you are not allowed to speak). I'll write specifically about the library sometime in the future.

4. Course Registration and Grading

This guidance session tells you how to register for classes and how the grading system goes: how many credits are needed for graduation, what is the maximum number of credits, etc.

5. Information for a Successful Student Life

Provides a good range of information about the campus buildings and opening hours as well as good spots to shop and to dine in the Beppu downtown area, as well as various student activities that even us Graduate students can engage to.

6. Registration Procedures

Address registration and National Health Insurance registration. This is a very important session because you cannot do everything else without registering your address (making a bank account, point card, online shopping, etc.).

7. Career Planning and Job Hunting

Preparation class for students who is interested in working in Japan after graduation so that we know what we should gain within years of our study in order to be able to hired in a Japanese company.

8. Entrance Ceremony

Ritsumeikan APU Entrance Ceremony

The entrance ceremony is a quite fun ceremony, because we have to wear traditional clothes from our home country. There I met lots of international students wearing their traditional clothes, for example Japanese students wearing kimono. There's also some speeches from the President of the University as well as the mayor of Beppu city, as well as performances from countries all around the world such as Vietnam, Indonesia, China, etc.

9. Health Check Up

A mandatory health check up which is conducted every year. Here they'll do a urine test, chest X-ray, blood pressure, blood tests, visual acuity, physical measurements, and internal health consultation in the end. Personal note: surprisingly, my cholesterol goes down here. Seems I've walked a lot.

10. AP House Disaster Drill

AP House Disaster Drill Led by the Resident Assistants

A disaster drill or simulation of what we need to do when there's a fire and earthquake. They showed us the evacuation route as well as how to use the fire extinguisher in case of emergency.

11. MBA Orientation

Explanation about the MBA program as well as meet-and-greet with the faculty members. The graduate classroom was pretty cool and classical, it reminds me of the Hogwarts classrooms (in Harry Potter movies). We met some of the professors here and were able to have interesting conversations with them.

12. Health Care and Health Management

Guidance session on how to maintain our health during our study in Japan and how to have a 'healthy relationship' (Japan is a free country, after all). I won't write too much about this :P

13. Using the Co-op

Ritsumeikan APU has their own Co-op which is basically an organization that is run by APU for APU. Co-op basically handles the campus convenience store, campus cafetaria, and the campus cafe. Co-op system is integrated to our Student ID Card where we can charge our Student ID Card with money and use it to pay our convenience store / food bills.

14. Course Registration

Session for registering our class for one semester via website, just like most campus system do. It's a 'click war' for the undergraduate students to get their favorite classes because of the limited quota, but it seems calm enough for the graduate students.

15. AP House Entrance Ceremony

Residents of W4 Building at AP House Entrance Ceremony (from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Morocco)

Again, more like a celebration rather than guidance session. It's a party to meet more than 500 AP House residents with special performances from Resident Assistants (RAs). They provide a lot of food and drinks and everyone was having a great time.

16. JASSO Honors Scholarship

Session for the grantees of JASSO Honors Scholarship for Privately Financed International Students. This is a very important guidance session for everyone who is involved, as you'll lose your scholarship if you don't attend this guidance session.

17. How to Keep Your Scholarship

Session on rules and regulations to keep the scholarship for students who received scholarship either from the University, government, or other organizations.

18. The APU Scholarship System

Guidance session on how to search and apply for other scholarships to provide the students the financial aid they need so that they can concentrate more on their studies.

These 18 guidance sessions is not the end guys, there are still more guidance sessions even after the classes start: the bank account guidance session, the gym guidance session, etc. They provide guidance sessions for everything to the point of being annoying. A friend from America even jokes that he hasn't used his bathroom yet for two weeks because he was waiting for the 'Bathroom Guidance' :D

But still, very organized and informative: this is Japan.

It was a very long post, and I hope you were able to read this post until the end.

Thanks for reading guys!