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I, myself, am a Japanese major who graduates in a month!
I am currently at The University of Findlay in Ohio and it is a very good program. It interacts a lot with the local community and really stresses being able to communicate in the language. It's a small program so there's a lot of time for individualized help with the two professors, both native Japanese. There's also a large community of students from Japan that the program also works with, which gives students a lot of chances to talk with native speakers.
They are still building up chances to go abroad, but they have four options at the moment. One option, which I did, is to go to southern Japan and teach English at an English school operated by a former graduate of UF. It's an awesome opportunity, and if you're looking to be a Japanese teacher or even an ESL teacher, it'll be one of the best things you do. The other options are to teach English at a company in Saitama which has a car engine parts plant in Findlay. This opens up a lot of job opportunities. One of my friends who did this internship came back and is now working at the American plant teaching English to the Japanese employees who do a rotational stint in America for a few years. There's also a year-long study abroad option to Daito Bunka Daigaku in Japan. One of my friends is currently over there and LOVES it. Not too sure on what you can do there as it's a new program, but hey, it's a chance to go to a college in Japan. One last option they have is a month-long summer exchange with a group of universities called the KAKE group. The son of the president of the KAKE schools was actually an exchange student at our school and was an awesome guy. biggrin This program picks a total of 10 students and faculty members every year to go to Japan for a month and visit several schools in western and southern Japan that are part of the KAKE University group. Students from UF go in June/July, and then 10 students and faculty members from the various KAKE schools come to UF for a month in August/September. It's a GREAT experience and you see a lot of Japan in a short period, and also meet a group of Brazilians that the KAKE Group has a similar program with.
A few other schools I know of that have good Japanese programs are Ohio State Univeristy and Ball State Univeristy in Indiana. Both offer full majors and minors in the language, as well as teaching certificates (so does Findlay. I'm getting mine in December biggrin ). Be warned that the professors at Ohio State and at UF are very, very, very, very, very, very good friends, so UF does use the textbooks written by OSU's professor, Mari Noda. The same book was/is used at Yale. Ball State is a nice school and the professor that I met was an awesome guy from the area I went to in high school. OSU and Ball State both offer graduate degrees in Japanese, if I'm not mistaken, and have mnore opportunities to study abroad.
I would totally suggest looking up the websites for these schools and see what you like. If you like a small school and a small program, look at UF. If you like a mid-sized school, Ball State. If you don't mind one of the largest campuses in the US, try OSU.
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