It’s still a few days until I fly out to Japan but considering that I’ve never blogged before I wanted to make a little test post to try things out. But given that I haven’t even gotten on the plane yet I can’t really talk about my experiences. So instead I figured I would give some general tips to the application process to hopefully answer some questions and fears that I had while going through it. I’ll also throw in some photos from a trip I took last month to Colorado, mostly to test out putting pictures into the blog.

• Be honest and enthusiastic in personal statements

One of the first things you will have to do is write personal statements for both the CofC application and the Kansai Gaidai application. If you’re anything like me, you agonize over things like this because you’re always worried about saying the wrong thing and ruining your chances. While I can’t give you any specific advice on what to include or how to write it, as everyone’s reasons for wanting to be a part of the program are different, I can give you the biggest tip I was given when I started. Just be honest with your reasons and try and let your enthusiasm for the program come through as much as possible. I know it seems simple but I feel by starting off with that in mind you’ll be able to hit the ground running and feel more confident in what you are writing.

• Course Approvals

The next big step you’re going to encounter is getting all those course approvals. There are a couple ways you can go about this but the easiest way I found was to just use email. The Center for International Education, CiE, has an email list of all the department heads that you need to contact on their website here, look for “Course Approval Directory”. Find the department that the course seems like it would correspond to, for example for Japanese Music contact the Music Department. Then email the person listed there with a meaningful subject and in the body of the email explain that you are looking to see what a study abroad course will transfer as. Also include the course title and description which can be found in the book about the program you should have gotten from CiE. They should email you back pretty quickly with the course it will transfer in as, just write that on your sheet and save the email. When you turn your sheet in you’ll forward the email to CiE and they will sign off on it. Some courses can be kind of tricky as to what department they fall under, I’ve found that just making your best guess can get you started and if it is wrong a lot of times the head you emailed can point you in the right direction.

• Course offerings for your semester

This is a bit of a smaller tip but just something that I think might be helpful. If you go to Kansai Gaidai’s website and under academics -> course descriptions at the bottom you will find a list of pdfs that contain the course offerings for your semester. It may be a good idea to look at these to make sure that a course that you see in the book is going to be offered the semester you go. There are often other courses that are not in the book listed as well, though finding the course descriptions of these courses can sometimes be tricky.

• Mailing materials and deadlines

One of the most important things you will have to do is mail the application packet to Kansai Gaidai, that’s right mail. Not email, not fax, good old-fashioned snail mail. I highly recommend using DHL to do this. I did try using the US Postal Service and ended up having to send the entire packet again because they took more then two weeks to get it there, DHL had it done in 3 days and that was only because it was over a weekend. You could probably use a similar service to DHL, like FedEx or UPS, but I have no experience with them to say one way or the other. You will also have to send you passport off to Atlanta for your visa application and I would recommend using FedEx, UPS, or DHL for that as well. Basically, if it needs to get there quickly and confidently I would recommend against the post office but your mileage may vary.

The second part of this point is to always be aware of deadlines as there are some big ones. The biggest one is going to be the deadline for the paper application to Kansai Gaidai as that one is strict and since you are mailing it can get dicey if you slack on it. The other big ones would be the CiE application deadline and the deadline for submitting acceptance and housing information after you get accepted by KG. Just stay on top of things and don’t let them sneak up on you.

• Certificate of Eligibility, Packet, and Visa

First things first, they are slow about getting the Certificates out, I think mine took until mid-July to get to me. So, don’t panic immediately, if it starts getting late and you are still concerned you can email the Center for International Educating at Kansai Gaidai, you should find an email address in your acceptance email. I’ve found that they are good about getting back quickly and answering questions but keep in mind that a lot of the process for the CoE is out of their hands. When you finally get your CoE it’ll come in an information packet, I recommend reading the booklet and papers carefully as they contain important information, most notably about the few fees that you will need to pay as well as addresses that you will need for the Visa application. Speaking of the Visa I once again recommend using a service like FedEx or UPS to send it to Atlanta. Once sent off it shouldn’t take too long for them to process it, mine only took around one day to process and like 3 to ship there and back. However, they claim that it could take up to 5 business days to process so plan accordingly.

And that’s about it. I hope these tips answer some questions you may have and help make the long application process a bit more bearable. Continuing with this blog I hope to give some more insight into the program and just living in Japan in general. But before that happens I have a bit of a trip planned before the semester starts. I’ll be flying in a week early to visit Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, and Nagoya and I hope to show some of my experiences and travel tips using this blog. My goal is to post everyday for that trip and then once a week or every two weeks while the semester goes on, but we’ll see if I can stick to that. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next time.