INTEGRATIVE nARRATIVE
Why I Chose to be a Japanese Language and Culture Major and Business Minor
-My initial interest in Japanese Language studies first came from when I began listening to Japanese Rock music in High School. After listening for a couple of years, I wanted to do more than listen: I wanted to understand. I then jumped into Japanese class during my fourth year of High School. Before that 2008 fall semester started, I bought an introductory Japanese text book and taught myself how to read and write Japanese Hiragana and Katakana during summer. When I did start class that Fall of 2008, my ability to grasp the basics came fast and I wanted to learn more and faster. I then started having a tutor come to my house every Saturday for a two hour lesson in vocab, grammar, speaking, and listening.
-After a couple months of doing that, I was then asked if I wanted to join their special Friday class in the town over, which I also started doing. I honestly enjoyed learning the language and have ever since. My reason to major in Japanese has been fueled by my pure interest in developing and mastering the language the best I can. After studying abroad, it became clearer that not only should focus on the language, but also the culture: without cultural understanding, your missing another half of the language acquisition.
-I decided to accompany my major with a minor as to provide myself with an additional number of other skills sets to use in the work force and to also create a basis so that I have additional room to grow if my future career path goes down the road of a business person. I found studying Marketing, Management, and Finance to be highly interesting and provided me with great knowledge about business.
What I have learned
-I have learned that language is a long-term commitment to developing, understanding, and mastering the art. I realized that reaching a high level doesn't come just from going to college: the pursuit of becoming fluent comes from the drive and commitment to becoming a master of the Japanese Language and Culture. When people are born, they're usually exposed to their home language all the time, and the development of language from youth actually took longer than I remember. From Elementary to High school, formal education was 12 years plus use in and outside of school. It should be expected that my own further development of the language will take more years, but it will be worth it.
-Also, studying abroad is the only way to start your path to becoming a proper major in Japanese Language and Culture. Nowhere else in the world is Japanese a major language than in Japan. If you cannot expose yourself to being in the environment and living there, your overall study of Japanese will be highly insufficient.
What areas am I most proud of?
-What I'm proud of is that this whole process of Japanese Language and Culture study started in 2008 and I've come a long way to see the progress in 2014, but also the ability that I earned my way into studying abroad in Japan and living an amazing life for a year. I'm super proud that I was able to do a Major and Minor without failing any classes. My grades were As and Bs.
-I received an award from the Japanese National Honor Society for my high GPA standing in my major. Very cool.
-Also, now that Capstone is over, I'm proud that I was able to accomplish such a big Research and Development project. I didn't understand the size of the project before I started, but now that everything has come together, it's impressive how I was able to utilize a number of technologies, PPT, Excel, Google Drive, in both Japanese and English. Create a 60 slide presentation and 23 page essay, both in Japanese and English.
What I want to develop in the future
I want to continue my Japanese abilities. I believe that the number of Kanji, my reading skills, and listening need to be developed further. Not only Japanese, but I also want to continue to develop other business-related skills as to make sure I have a consistently developing and unique skill set.
MLO REFLECTION
MLO 1 Language and communication: I received a plethora of experience and development in interpersonal, interpretive and presentational communication. Interpersonal communication development came from my time abroad. Living and being exposed to a Japanese community was key in this development. Interpretive development started when I began my studies in 2008, but I was able to reach Upper-Intermediate and Advanced Level Japanese by studying abroad, taking 400 Level courses at CSUMB, and completing my Capstone Project. Presentational skills have been developed each semester, as each class had a final project that required me to demonstrate my skills at the end of the semester.
MLO 2 Culture: perspectives, practices, and products were all key aspects to the study of the Japanese culture. Exposure to initial Japanese culture came from in-class study, but full understanding and perspectives of what they were came from my time abroad in Japan.
MLO 3 Secondary Culture: I was able to also gain additional understanding from a third culture by taking Spanish Cinema. The films we watched contained on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian content that gave me interesting insight into several different Hispanic Cultures, including: Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, and Brazil. All of which provided cultural and historical aspects of each country.
MLO 4 Research and Technology: The first half of my Capstone Project focused on research. We learned how to utilize different mediums of search engines, both internet and library-based, and learned how to look for relevant in formation to use in the project. The second half of the project was about taking all that research, both review of literature and survey data, and utilize current technologies for the overall project, including PowerPoint, Excel, Google Drive, and Google Documents.
MLO 5 Cultural Internalization and Language Immersion: My time abroad in a Japanese community was key to understanding current Japanese practices and social norms. It was also my time in Japan that gave me an authentic experience being, living, and using Japanese in a Japanese community.
SERVICE LEARNING
-Service learning was a unique experience in which I went to a local elementary school and taught children about Japanese culture. The point of doing this was to expose the children, who live in a highly homogenious hispanic community, about multiculturalism and the positives of it. I learned that the children of the farming communities in Salinas and Monterey have a lack of exposure and experience with those outside of their own cultural group.
-By going and teaching the kids, not only did we expose them to ourselves, but we also showed them interest in another language. The kids were actually very excited when they learned about new words or number or writing in Japanese. One thing that was also interesting for the Japanese exchange students who were in my group, one person said that they learned in school that everyone knows where Japan is on a map. In an activity where we taught the kids about Japanese geography, the exchange students were very surprised to find that the kids didn't know where Japan was. It was a learning experience for both me and the exchange students.
CAPSTONE EXPEREINCE
Capstone was a very, very long experience. This was my first time working on a major Research and Development project.
-The first thing that I learned from this was the number of times one will have to edit-and-reedit every aspect and detail of your project. No matter what part of the project it is, it being the background research, the survey, the PowerPoint, the script, the translations, the charts, the data analysis, the speech: it takes AMPLE TIME and TIME MANAGEMENT to reach the final product.
-I learned about using more academic-level Japanese in my presentation and when writing a formal paper.
-Also, my since my capstone was in Japanese and English, there were times where certain words in English were hard to translate or couldn't be translated at all. There will be some error based on translation issues.
-The process of working and developing works in Japanese takes more than just help from my advisers: I was tasked to go out and get help from the study abroad students. The translation development takes a few stages as well.
-My initial interest in Japanese Language studies first came from when I began listening to Japanese Rock music in High School. After listening for a couple of years, I wanted to do more than listen: I wanted to understand. I then jumped into Japanese class during my fourth year of High School. Before that 2008 fall semester started, I bought an introductory Japanese text book and taught myself how to read and write Japanese Hiragana and Katakana during summer. When I did start class that Fall of 2008, my ability to grasp the basics came fast and I wanted to learn more and faster. I then started having a tutor come to my house every Saturday for a two hour lesson in vocab, grammar, speaking, and listening.
-After a couple months of doing that, I was then asked if I wanted to join their special Friday class in the town over, which I also started doing. I honestly enjoyed learning the language and have ever since. My reason to major in Japanese has been fueled by my pure interest in developing and mastering the language the best I can. After studying abroad, it became clearer that not only should focus on the language, but also the culture: without cultural understanding, your missing another half of the language acquisition.
-I decided to accompany my major with a minor as to provide myself with an additional number of other skills sets to use in the work force and to also create a basis so that I have additional room to grow if my future career path goes down the road of a business person. I found studying Marketing, Management, and Finance to be highly interesting and provided me with great knowledge about business.
What I have learned
-I have learned that language is a long-term commitment to developing, understanding, and mastering the art. I realized that reaching a high level doesn't come just from going to college: the pursuit of becoming fluent comes from the drive and commitment to becoming a master of the Japanese Language and Culture. When people are born, they're usually exposed to their home language all the time, and the development of language from youth actually took longer than I remember. From Elementary to High school, formal education was 12 years plus use in and outside of school. It should be expected that my own further development of the language will take more years, but it will be worth it.
-Also, studying abroad is the only way to start your path to becoming a proper major in Japanese Language and Culture. Nowhere else in the world is Japanese a major language than in Japan. If you cannot expose yourself to being in the environment and living there, your overall study of Japanese will be highly insufficient.
What areas am I most proud of?
-What I'm proud of is that this whole process of Japanese Language and Culture study started in 2008 and I've come a long way to see the progress in 2014, but also the ability that I earned my way into studying abroad in Japan and living an amazing life for a year. I'm super proud that I was able to do a Major and Minor without failing any classes. My grades were As and Bs.
-I received an award from the Japanese National Honor Society for my high GPA standing in my major. Very cool.
-Also, now that Capstone is over, I'm proud that I was able to accomplish such a big Research and Development project. I didn't understand the size of the project before I started, but now that everything has come together, it's impressive how I was able to utilize a number of technologies, PPT, Excel, Google Drive, in both Japanese and English. Create a 60 slide presentation and 23 page essay, both in Japanese and English.
What I want to develop in the future
I want to continue my Japanese abilities. I believe that the number of Kanji, my reading skills, and listening need to be developed further. Not only Japanese, but I also want to continue to develop other business-related skills as to make sure I have a consistently developing and unique skill set.
MLO REFLECTION
MLO 1 Language and communication: I received a plethora of experience and development in interpersonal, interpretive and presentational communication. Interpersonal communication development came from my time abroad. Living and being exposed to a Japanese community was key in this development. Interpretive development started when I began my studies in 2008, but I was able to reach Upper-Intermediate and Advanced Level Japanese by studying abroad, taking 400 Level courses at CSUMB, and completing my Capstone Project. Presentational skills have been developed each semester, as each class had a final project that required me to demonstrate my skills at the end of the semester.
MLO 2 Culture: perspectives, practices, and products were all key aspects to the study of the Japanese culture. Exposure to initial Japanese culture came from in-class study, but full understanding and perspectives of what they were came from my time abroad in Japan.
MLO 3 Secondary Culture: I was able to also gain additional understanding from a third culture by taking Spanish Cinema. The films we watched contained on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian content that gave me interesting insight into several different Hispanic Cultures, including: Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, and Brazil. All of which provided cultural and historical aspects of each country.
MLO 4 Research and Technology: The first half of my Capstone Project focused on research. We learned how to utilize different mediums of search engines, both internet and library-based, and learned how to look for relevant in formation to use in the project. The second half of the project was about taking all that research, both review of literature and survey data, and utilize current technologies for the overall project, including PowerPoint, Excel, Google Drive, and Google Documents.
MLO 5 Cultural Internalization and Language Immersion: My time abroad in a Japanese community was key to understanding current Japanese practices and social norms. It was also my time in Japan that gave me an authentic experience being, living, and using Japanese in a Japanese community.
SERVICE LEARNING
-Service learning was a unique experience in which I went to a local elementary school and taught children about Japanese culture. The point of doing this was to expose the children, who live in a highly homogenious hispanic community, about multiculturalism and the positives of it. I learned that the children of the farming communities in Salinas and Monterey have a lack of exposure and experience with those outside of their own cultural group.
-By going and teaching the kids, not only did we expose them to ourselves, but we also showed them interest in another language. The kids were actually very excited when they learned about new words or number or writing in Japanese. One thing that was also interesting for the Japanese exchange students who were in my group, one person said that they learned in school that everyone knows where Japan is on a map. In an activity where we taught the kids about Japanese geography, the exchange students were very surprised to find that the kids didn't know where Japan was. It was a learning experience for both me and the exchange students.
CAPSTONE EXPEREINCE
Capstone was a very, very long experience. This was my first time working on a major Research and Development project.
-The first thing that I learned from this was the number of times one will have to edit-and-reedit every aspect and detail of your project. No matter what part of the project it is, it being the background research, the survey, the PowerPoint, the script, the translations, the charts, the data analysis, the speech: it takes AMPLE TIME and TIME MANAGEMENT to reach the final product.
-I learned about using more academic-level Japanese in my presentation and when writing a formal paper.
-Also, my since my capstone was in Japanese and English, there were times where certain words in English were hard to translate or couldn't be translated at all. There will be some error based on translation issues.
-The process of working and developing works in Japanese takes more than just help from my advisers: I was tasked to go out and get help from the study abroad students. The translation development takes a few stages as well.