Nanzan University - Nagoya Campus — Local services in Nagoya

I attended Nanzan's Center for Japanese Studies and would not recommend the program or the institution as a whole. Before entering I had self-studied to a level just shy of JLPT N2 and after admission exams was placed in the second highest level of Japanese classes. I found the Japanese classes offered by CJS to be challenging but far less effective than my prior studies. The study materials themselves were decent, although lacked overall polish with typos and errors spread throughout them. My overall workload increased significantly, but my progress in Japanese did not coincide with this. I think too much time was invested in writing and reading and not enough focus was placed on speaking business level Japanese. Myself and most of my classmates struggled with spoken Japanese even after an entire semester. I will say the professors seemed to be quite good and genuinely cared about each of their students. The small class sizes were nice too. One of the most negative aspects of CJS was the lack of interaction with native Japanese speakers, there were few opportunities within classes to do so, requiring students to put much of the initiative on themselves. Furthermore the semesters did not coincide with the Japanese school year, meaning for a large part of the CJS program (particularly in the second semester) Japanese students were not even present on campus. I found much more success practicing Japanese outside of school with locals I met on my own. Another grievance of mine involves the living situation. Students could live in dormitories or in some cases self-housing. As I had my own apartment, I fell under self-housing, but Nanzan University still required me to send them a year's worth of money for rent and living expenses and then remit them back to me on a monthly basis. In some cases my own money from Nanzan arrived late, causing unnecessary stress for me. Given all of this I would reluctantly say the program deserved 3 stars, a subpar program that I would not recommend based on hindsight but not entirely bad. However, the administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was what really destroyed my opinion of Nanzan University. Around mid to late February we were told by administration that classes would continue regardless of the pandemic, only for them to reverse their stance a couple of weeks later and shut down the campus to foreign students. They gave us a deadline to leave Japan within a few short weeks and the option to continue with classes or withdraw from the program. To purchase plane tickets and return home on such short notice was extremely expensive for many students and nobody to my knowledge was reimbursed by Nanzan. Furthermore, students who wished to withdraw from the program (many of which had to due to financial burdens imposed by the administration's decision) were only given a very small portion of their unused tuition fees, while the majority was pocketed by the University. Those who continued did not receive any discount either, despite all the benefits of studying on campus being stripped from them. This was undoubtedly the worst and most stressful experience I've ever been through in my life. I was now forced to return home at a massively inflated cost and would be required to pay out my apartment's lease as it was signed for the expected duration of my studies. On top of that my dream of graduating from the program was over. I consulted the administration on multiple occasions about this situation they had put me in and to see if I could stay in Japan but their indifference to my circumstances was unwavering. Thus I made the difficult decision to withdraw. The administration assured me that if I stayed they would inform immigration authorities about the CJS program's closure and have my visa nullified. Before leaving I visited the local immigration center and got well-needed legal counsel, informing me that it was okay to stay for my originally intended duration. In the end I enjoyed my remaining time in Japan, but I will never forget how poorly I was treated by...

I love the school. The campus is so lush. The Japanese teachers truly care about their students! They are also very competent! Student support was awesome too, I felt very welcomed. As for the classes, the reading materials were my favorite because the topics are deep and there were lots of time for discussions. Course design was top notch as well. 👌 (I previously studied Japanese in another Japanese university during my bachelor's but it was nowhere near what I experienced at Nanzan) In case you wonder, I was in Japanese 5, which is...

東京でも名古屋でも「すごい」...