The reason why I decided to study at this college is because I wanted to strengthen my language skills.
I am thinking of becoming a system engineer in the future. Reading and writing English become essential when trying to write a program.
In addition, recently it is often developed in cooperation with overseas developers, so the ability to listen and speak English is also important.
At Augustana College, where I study, there is a department called communication studies, so I am looking forward to learning the skills.
Also, since people in this college live in the dorm, I live with a student who is also studying abroad. Japanese from KCUFS is only me, so I feel challenging.
In parallel with aiming at improving communication skills, I will also study general education over there (liberal arts).
The area I particularly interested in is LGBTQ, I would like to use the subjects I study at this college to my graduation thesis.
I'm looking forward to studying that subject since the student said there was a good professor in that field.

I can communicate closely with my classmates and professors because the number of students is small compared to other colleges.
Mostly one class has 10 to 20 students, so it's easy to get an appointment with the professor, and you can quickly get acquainted with classmates and get along well.

Since attendance is strictly evaluated and interactions in the class are important, I always prepared myself in advance to speak at least 1 time in the class,to interact with the professor.
Sometimes, I made an appointment with professors by e-mail, and asked what they thought about me, and questioned whether there were any ways to improve my grades.

Augustana College has a good supporting system for students.
If there is something you do not understand in the class, there is a Reading Writing Center where you can feel free to ask a senior who has experience in the class to correct your essay.
They helped me a lot when I was mentally and physically sick too.

I would like to study hard in the next trimester too.

What I think after completing my study abroad is that I am not a coward as before.
Since Augustana College is a small college, the distance between professors and students is close. It means that if you do not act actively in there, you will be left behind. In each class, the number of hands you raised in the class, the contents of the presentation, the outcome of the group project, etc. were evaluated more specifically than the attendance point, and professors evaluate how each of them contributed to the class. Therefore, if you just take the class, your score will be worse. In order to prevent this, I thought that it would be a good idea to have the professor remember my name, so I met all professors who taught me, and I also met the seniors who took those classes before to get the know-how. When I was in Japan, I was not working so actively, but in the U.S. I was desperate to survive. I was nervous at first because I was shy, but as I faced more and more people, I finally got used to them. Also, I think it was great to had lived with my roommates. To tell the truth, there were some frictions at the beginning of the first semester because of the difference in the way of thinking, but after drinking at a party together, helping each other in times of hardship, taking me to various places, etc. I got along them very well. Since I had lived alone before that with my parents, I think it was a very precious experience to live with people with backgrounds that have completely different cultures and languages. Thanks to the many help from the professors and Reading Writing Center in the academic field, my grades have improved a lot compared to the first trimester, and my listening ability was also improved well. There were a number of classes that changed my sense of values ​​completely, and it is clear that the way I look at the world have changed dramatically compared to before studying abroad. For now I do not have a dream, but I hope that I could get a job that can use the English language skills and patience that I have acquired during this program.