It motivated me to study abroad that the experience I had accepted a lot of foreign students as a member of the host-family. My mother is working in the international association, and she has had interests about being host-family, so many foreigners have stayed in my house since my childhood. It was enjoyable for me to talk with them about their home countries or mother languages. It does not take so long time to get interests about foreign countries and having conversation internationally. After knowing the exchange program, studying abroad while in university has been one of the biggest aims for me. Now, I am very happy to have made this come true and feeling motivated to improve my English skills as much as possible before departure.
There are two big aims for studying abroad: improving my language skills and finding a new me. The first one is improving my language skills. I have learned English for almost ten years but still now I cannot speak and listen to it well. I think that is because I have studied it as a subject not as a communication tool. I want to use English as a tool for daily conversation. I think the most effective way to get command of this language is living in the foreign country, so I applied for being an exchange student to go abroad. Now, I have already taken the online English conversation lessons for more than half a year as the preparation.
The second aim in studying abroad is finding a new me. This means I want to brush myself up and find new values by living in the unknown environment and communicating with various people. This is the most important aim for me in studying abroad. “Is it correct that the image of the foreigners I have?” “What is living abroad like?” “What is the real charm of Japan I have never found?”. To answer those questions, I want to watch the world by my eyes and feel it by my skin. In this global society, I guess in the future I will get more and more chance to go abroad and meet a lot of foreigners. In those situations, the experience like living in foreign countries or finding new values will be helpful to understand other people’s feelings and their backgrounds. I am sure that this experience will give me a lot of stimulation positively and be fruitful for my future.

It has been four months since I came here. I often feel that everyone has grown up in different cultures and that all of us have various and unique values. I knew I would encounter some gaps between Japan and Australia or other countries, but these differences are much larger than I expected. Sometimes I struggle to overcome them, and it takes much longer than usual, but I still enjoy experiencing brand new cultures and exposing myself to them.
I am living in student accommodation in front of the university, and every student here is studying their major so hard, which is impressive to me. I feel that I am spending my time much better than just earning a degree. So far, my experience as an exchange student has been much greater than I expected.