I knew that I wanted to study a language at university, and wanted to learn one from scratch. There is so much more to Japan and its culture than I anticipated. The cultural courses have really surprised me - we are taught to challenge everything, even the questions we’re being asked!
I like that the Japanese language courses are taught by mother-tongue speakers, and the staff are always very helpful. I have also enjoyed being able to tailor my degree to my interests in second year by choosing the courses I took.
I went to Japan for the first time at the end of my first year and could already communicate fairly well. I’m doing an internship in Japan this summer - I’m going to see where this takes me, I might like to work in Japan for a while after my degree.