Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University — Attraction in Beppu

From my one-year experience as an international APM freshman undergrad. 2017-2018 🚩 FYI, APU has hidden the Reviews tab on their Facebook page; hence, great that you have come for similar reviews available here. 🚩 Given that the university does well in marketing itself, below I will criticize for a balance.

University critique: You need to know that at this Ritsumeikan branch (that is nonetheless also typical of other Japanese universities), you will be sharing most of your lectures with some 150 students, a quarter of which will be absent, another quarter dozing from a hangover, the other quarter talking to their peers, and the remaining quarter captured by their electronic devices all the while the lecture is ongoing. This all not to mention that only few lecturers have a strong command of English language. Lastly, know that the Academic and Student offices are slow in dealing with personal matters.

Location critique: Beppu is a cute city but the daily commute to a uni whose campus is somewhat inefficiently located on the top of a mountain and 4 years in such a remote area of Kyūshū might all the more so not be worth it when as well considering your other options. I tell you this as a person who, during his one year, lived on campus (cannot stay for longer than a year), spent plenty of time downtown (half an hour ride from the campus), rode to every possible corner of Beppu, and then travelled to Oita, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Tokyo. I also recount you all this as a 20 y.o. student studying abroad for his sixth time. Do not get me wrong, you can still enjoy your experience here (partying, sightseeing, discovering the culture, meeting good people) AND grow as a person – as was also the case for me too with regard to both aspects, but personally for myself, a year was just enough, and if one is adequately zealous, then he/she will easily exhaust the attractions of this area in a single year. There is just not a whole lot to do for youth in this prefecture. The already aged population is even older in Southern Japan!

Speaking of academics, they are not too bad and I do not at all regret my time at APU. Ultimately, it always comes down to what does one make of his experience in the end. That being said, I did not want my Bachelor's degree to be only as valuable as its end (graduation diploma). I wanted each semester to have a meaningful intrinsic value. So... one of two major reasons of why I quit merely a year afterwards.

And with this, I conclude my message to all prospective international undergrads. Disclaimer: Please mind that personal experiences are often biased and your mileage may very much vary. On this final note, all the best to you in choosing where to study, fellow student! Take what you will from this review with a grain of salt. Just maybe plan ahead to do a year as an...

Does not care about students. So much so that there have been 7 SUICIDES in my time here. It happens every month without fail. My friends have died here.

You’ve probably seen the video from the YouTube content creator Dogen about how amazing this school is as a multicultural facility for broadening your horizons? I thought the same thing. Well, there’s likely a reason he doesn’t work here anymore. He likes the THOUGHT of the school but the experience is terrible.

Services are slow. Classes are uninformative.

Wifi is broken. Dorms are damaged and dirty. The F building and the starboard clock tower have been under construction long enough that satellite photos still depict scaffolding that has not been removed.

The teachers laugh at students when they receive complaints or requests for assistance.

Even teachers mock this school for being such a lossy place to work and assumed to be bad to attend as students from their perspective. The security cameras are mostly fake. How does a Meiji-era monetary trust lack the funds to install REALY security cameras? They’re like 4000 yen…

The social scene is so insanely toxic. You must walk on eggshells or people will make damning rumors about you fast that destroy your social circles and opportunities.

The racism between students is insane. Never at a university have I heard a call for genocide and yet, students regularly do it in the dorm. This was when I was in AP House 1. I heard it in House 2 and House 5 mostly has issues with people having sex too much and being loud. The faculty themselves have actually created a council specifically to combat racism within their own ranks.

The fact of the matter is that people don’t come here for an education. They come here as a last resort to escape whatever hellhole they lived in before. Unfortunately, the famous Beppu Jigoku is not located in Kannawa, but is instead in Jumonjibaru. The real hell is APU.

I’m sorry to burst anyone’s bubble who thought this would be an easy and FUN way to enter Japan but this is not real Japan.

I recommend going to TIU instead. At least you get a useful education there rather than a reason to become another...

APU sucks in every possible aspects, except for its facility and “cultural diversity”. I feel sorry for you if you have high expectations for the academics here, I genuinely think the worst element of APU is how its education is so low-quality, it’s like teaching for secondary students. You’ll learn largely nothing from the professors (apart from some really nice ones who truly put themselves in your shoes), the rest is just bad.

Also, this school is a commuter school. I repeat again, this school requires long and intense drives back and forth every single day (because it’s located on top of a mountain, I swear to god there’s nothing here). You’ll pay an absurd amount of money for commuting to school here.

And the people around you? I’m sorry to anyone who’s smart but decides to go to this place or doesn’t have enough money to study at a better school, but you’ll be surrounded by tons of average-IQ people. Many of them can’t even speak English and they mostly come here either to escape from their hometown or work part-time jobs instead of learning. Oh did I mention that even the professors can’t speak English properly? They literally can’t.

If you really can tolerate the Japanese culture and have tons of money to waste then yeah this is the place for you. But if you only come here because of the scholarship (they literally give scholarships to everyone so no you’re not special, in return they charge full fees for the Japanese because they can’t enter national universities), then please don’t.

I’m warning you with my utmost care, please...