The missing language: Japanese at VCU
So I’m sitting here thinking about where exactly I want to go to graduate school in a year. I found out that if I want to do anything with my degree in history, I have to have my master’s in order to do so. So I figured I’d like to write my thesis on something in Asian studies, mostly in the area of Japan.
So I’m sitting here thinking about where exactly I want to go to graduate school in a year. I found out that if I want to do anything with my degree in history, I have to have my master’s in order to do so. So I figured I’d like to write my thesis on something in Asian studies, mostly in the area of Japan.
“The popularity of the language would not be a problem either,
seeing how Japanese media has taken over bookstores everywhere.”
Since I don’t know any Japanese, I’m looking at schools that will allow me to take the Japanese language within the major or as an elective while I’m doing my graduate work, narrowing down my list to a few schools.
As I’m looking at schools, I begin to wonder, why doesn’t VCU have Japanese as a language choice? I actually wouldn’t mind going to VCU for my graduate work, but the reason I’m not is because I want to learn Japanese for my master’s degree.
So why doesn’t VCU have Japanese as a language choice? I know the school allows us to take any classes that are not offered here at a local outside college, but who wants to try and commute between two different schools when it would just be easier to have what we need here?
The offer is nice, but it’s a little inconvenient. I’ve talked to people that drive here from Williamsburg and wonder how they make their schedules accommodate the commute to and from school. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to add in the commute to a separate school entirely because of one or two classes.
And what about the people who can’t commute? I guess they have to be stuck taking a language they don’t want or will not enjoy.
The popularity of the language would not be a problem either, seeing how Japanese media has taken over bookstores everywhere. In one store I frequently visit, I have seen the video game and role- playing game books slowly lose more and more space near the magazines and have now been moved to a completely different location by the computer manual section of the store to make room for the numerous volumes of traditional style manga – Japanese comics – that keep coming in.
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I too would like to take Japanese at VCU. I am enrolling now as a transfer and will have to take the courses at a different university. This is very inconvenient for me and other students. Japanese is a very popular language spoken in one of the world’s wealthiest and most influential countries in the modern era and historically. Why VCU doesn’t have it is beyond me; it was even offered at my middle school.
I completely agree. In all my searches I have found just 1 course specifying any sort of Japanese study and it’s only equipped to handle 40 students (History of Modern Japan). Truly a disappointment for such a “diverse” university. I am a history major as well and am taking a trip to Japan in the summer of 2017. I was really hoping that VCU would offer a Japanese language class but it seems I’ll just have to go the “Japanese for Dummies” route. Which, albeit, has been very helpful so I would recommend that if you still have difficulty finding a university/class to suit your needs. There are CD-ROM’s that have interactive games/teaching tools..