Throwback: My Japanese college application essay
Note: I wrote this essay as an 18-year-old, final year high school student keen on applying to the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University, Japan. This university accepted me and I was supposed to have matriculated in April 2011. However, due to the tragic tsunami and earthquake in 2011, I eventually made the decision to transfer schools from Japan back to Singapore. Over the years, my interests have developed from the ideas mentioned here. I am putting this essay up so that my juniors can have a look into a sample essay application for entrance into the English programs in Japanese universities.
The Girl Who Wanted to Be an Air Stewardess
As a child, I would always get “positively distracted” whenever I was on a plane. How nice it is to be an air stewardess, I used to tell myself. The uniforms look smart and I can travel around the world and interact with many people from different cultures. Such a prospect appealed to me way back then. Hence my childhood ambition was to become a stewardess.
Alas! It was not to be. Regardless of how much I played sport and exercised, I just could not satisfy the minimum height required for potential candidates for Singapore Airlines, my country’s national carrier. When I reached my teenage years, my growth spurt stalled and my ambition was dashed. I was crestfallen.
As I grew older, I realized that I could create opportunities to achieve my goals of interacting with other cultures despite being unable to be an air stewardess. There were so many opportunities laid in front of me, and I decided to make the best of them rather than whine over my height deficiency.
My peers who were then learning the Japanese language encouraged me to study Japanese alongside with them. I seized the opportunity as I felt that learning a foreign language like Japanese would be a stepping stone to communicate with Japanese people and learn more about Japan. The staccato-sounding syllables in Japanese were music to my ears. Gradually, I began to fall in love with Japanese to the extent of singing Japanese songs to myself.
Moreover, my experience interacting with some Japanese student participants in a school science competition has enabled me to appreciate Japan a little more beyond the glitz and glamor of what the media has been portraying. One memorable thing I learnt from a shy, bespectacled female student was that she took around three hours daily to commute to her school in Gunma prefecture from her home in Saitama prefecture. Having grown up in a small country like Singapore, I was accustomed to commuting between short distances and thus what this student shared surprised me. However, the most important thing I learnt from her was that despite our different cultural backgrounds, we still shared common interests such as good Japanese films.
Furthermore, as my proficiency in the language increased, I became a ‘Japanese-language tutor’ to others, including my best friend in high school . From my teaching experience, I realized the joys and satisfaction on seeing friends like her learn Japanese. In return, my best friend who came from Vietnam taught me the Vietnamese language.
Given my personal and heartfelt experiences, I thus intend to pursue my love for the Japanese language and culture in college. This is because I sincerely believe that learning about a complex and interesting society like Japan is not an overnight thing but rather, a pursuit that would require me to immerse fully in the heart of Japan.
This question then arises. Why then, the Waseda School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) of all colleges?
I have always aspired to study in SILS as a high school student because I believe that SILS’ liberal arts environment would be an appropriate place to master the Japanese language given the location of the school in the heart of Tokyo . A personal meeting with an SILS admissions officer this summer confirmed my opinions regarding this school and the assortment of Japanese and international students who studied there. Through the admissions officer’s sharing, I learnt a great deal about what the academic life at SILS was all about, as well as the diverse social opportunities that SILS would offer me.
If accepted into SILS, I plan to explore other potential academic interests, such as translation and media studies. I also aim to learn the French language and participate in the year-long Study Abroad Program that SILS offers. Moreover, I plan to contribute to the vibrant international scene at SILS. If accepted, I intend to join club activities that would enable me to befriend students from all over the world.
After graduation from SILS, I hope to pursue a job that I can inspire people to learn about other languages and cultures. What is captiviating about the SILS program is that SILS allows students to earn teaching certificates to teach English in Japanese schools. Hence I hope that this program would allow me to discover more about teaching English as a Foreign Language in Japan.
To encapsulate it all, I am confident that SILS will be the best place for me to study in and contribute towards. If I were to be given the God-given opportunity to pursue my college studies in SILS, I would be a step closer to achieving my childhood dreams of interacting with people from various cultures — this time round, without the need to meet a minimum height requirement.
