General Program Information
Host University:
"Hiroshima Institute of Technology was established in 1963 out of Hiroshima Technical Junior College, which had been established two years earlier, in 1961. Throughout the following years we have made steady progress, including the establishment of the Graduate School of Engineering, the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Graduate School of Environmental Studies. All together we have sent out more than 32,000 graduates. In April 2000, we reorganized the departments within the Faculty of Engineering to better adapt to remarkable advances in science and technology and to the rapid evolution of our information-oriented society. In April 1999, we set up a Department of Environmental Information to expand the range of specialization of our Faculty of Environmental Studies and to tackle environmental issues with the goal of conserving and improving the natural environment. And in April 2004, we started the new Department of Information Systems under the Graduate School of Engineering, thus further widening the fields of specialization pursued at HIT." - From 2005 Program Guide Book Part 1
Great, but how does that help you right? Well the important part for you to know is that HIT is an engineering school. HIT is somewhat highly ranked, but no where near the top academically. (As a side note, if you want to be really mystified, try asking someone where HIT ranks.) The students you'll be working with are taking difficult engineering classes and will often times disappear without warning to take exams and such.
HIT is located in a suburb of Hiroshima, about 15 minutes by train from Takasu (where the dorm is) and 30 minutes from downtown Hiroshima. HIT is actually a split campus, including a Junior High School and High School in addition to the college campus. HIT's campus is quite hilly, which does turn into somewhat of a pain since you'll walk a fair distance up the hill to get to class each day. (Or you can ride the bus, see below.) Most students on campus do not speak English, so if you want to talk to anyone outside of the volunteers, you will have to use Japanese.
You'll be eating lunch at school pretty much every week day. HIT has four different cafeterias, which serve somewhat different lunches. I personally liked both San Francisco and Monica. I didn't much care for Abade, but other people seemed to like it. The fourth cafeteria is up the hill from Monica, and we never actually made it that far. (Sad, right?) Don't worry about exactly where they are, you'll get the campus tour when you arrive.
Classes:
- Japanese Language - The Japanese Language class meets 3 hours per day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. The class is taught by Katsu-sensei, a native Japanese speaker. There is a decent amount of homework, but nothing too obsessive. If you don't find the homework helpful in learning, talk to Katsu. She said that she is willing to modify homework for different people, you just need to discuss what works best for you. The objective of this class is to learn as much Japanese as you can in the shortest time possible. As such, it is fairly fast paced. You'll cover all 8 chapters of the book in 5 weeks. Honestly, I stopped understanding most of the material at around week 4, but as long as you get the concepts, it'll help you a lot, both there and after you get back. Learn as much as you can, but don't stress over it. The class focuses on spoken Japanese. You'll need to know Hiragana and Katakana, but you'll never have to learn Kanji for the class.
- Japanese Culture - The Japanese Culture class meets 2 hours per day, 3 times a week, for 5 weeks. The class is taught by Don Fowler, a British citizen who has been living in Japan for many years. Before arriving, make sure you have completed the pre course reading. (Ask IPENG) We hadn't known about it, and it set the class back quite a bit. The class is primarily discussion based, and if no one has any knowledge, its very hard to discuss anything. You will be writing a short paper (mine was 4 pages single spaced) for the class, but its not that hard. Unfortunately though, it does take some time. Budget some time on the weekends to work on it. The culture class is much slower paced than the language class. I found I was looking forward to it as a break. I didn't like the way that Fowler taught the class at first, but by then end of it, I was really enjoying it.
See HIT Program Guide 2005 Part 2 for more information.
Volunteer Students:
Title: Tutoring Session
There are students at HIT who will volunteer to be your tutors, companions and friends during your time at HIT. They will be there to meet you your first night and to help you adapt to being in a foreign country. Collectively, the volunteer students who worked with us were some of the nicest and most friendly people I have ever met. I count many of them as friends, and I know others in the program felt the same way. Most of them speak only limited English, but it'll more than be worth your time to talk to them. You'll spend most of your time speaking a pidgin of Japanese and English. This can be rather stressful and tiring at first, so make sure you leave yourselves some time to relax. By the end of your time there, you'll be used to speaking the pidgin and you'll be able to speak comfortably (albeit slowly) with any one of the volunteers. Three recommendations to make your communication easier:
- Speak as much Japanese as you can. This is far easier for them to understand. They will probably speak to you in broken English. We found this two language communication style to work best, since each person was trying to understand their own language, not the others.
- When speaking English, speak slowly! Also, make sure not to use slang terms. (IE. Say something is difficult, not hard. Hard doesn't make sense when translated.)
- Be patient. It will take you a while to understand each other. Getting frustrated doesn't help. Think of it this way: what else do you have to be doing? So why hurry?
Internet/Computer Access
There will be wired network ports in the dorm common room, and in a special computer classroom set aside for UIUC students at school. HIT will provide you a laptop, which you can take to the dorm after checking it out. At school there is wireless available, but only for the pre-configured laptops. Wireless access is not available at the dorm unless you bring/buy a WAP. We bought one and, split 6 ways, it was only about $12 per person. For six weeks that is not bad. The wireless signal covered the common room and a couple of the closest rooms.
See HIT Program Guide 2005 Part 2 for more information.