I think some of the strong points of APU is the diversity, the
amount of students from so many places in the world is so mind-blowing at first
I think just this year there was from 102 different countries just in one semester
which I think is insane. So within that experience you get to meet people from
all over the world with different cultural backgrounds with different experiences that
are different to you and you can really get an eye-opening view of how the world really is.
One of the main features of the APU curriculum is its three faculties - there are "APM" "APS" and "ST" and introducing them in order,
APM is a department called the College of International Management, and in a nutshell, it is a faculty where you can learn business.
The second one, APS is the College of Asia Pacific Studies
which covers social sciences other than business, such as International relations and social law, and social sciences broadly.
The last one, "ST" is the College of Sustainability and Tourism, which will newly open in April
If you want to study the environment or tourism in Social Science, for example, I would definitely recommend this new department called ST.
You can study all three of these departments in either English or Japanese.
I chose APU because of a large amount of reasons honestly, the first major
reason for me is I was very attracted to the the International campus here at APU, we actually
have a 50 50 ratio to domestic Japanese students and international students from
all over the world. So that gives you a lot of opportunities to actually learn in English get
a lot of help from the college for Japanese, learning Japanese and getting accustomed to
Japan. A majority of my courses currently are in English primarily, a lot of my major
subjects so my accounting and finance courses, my management courses, marketing courses, all of
my actual business-related courses currently are in English. However, I also take language courses
being for instance Japanese language courses and so those courses tend to be in Japanese
and there are also the opportunity for me once I have improved my Japanese to an ability that I'm
comfortable I can also begin to take my courses in Japanese.
I think one of the best aspects of being in APM (College of International Management) is the real hand experience you get to have along the way.
So a lot of other colleges of course you get to get a degree then you go into work however here with APM I'm not in your first
year but after your second and third years you get to go have real hand experience at companies. So
you go into a company prepare project research and get real first-hand case studies done that will
give you really valuable experience in your future career.
Career opportunities for our APU students the sky is the limit I think because we attract students who have different aspirations and unique
personalities and unique abilities and so then they actually are able to develop different
careers so some would then working for consulting firms also working for non-profit organizations or
working for governments or working for other private enterprises here in Japan or outside Japan
and some would also go to graduate school and some also would become entrepreneurs and I think it's
because we provide that kind of environment so that our students would feel free and equipped to choose the career they want.
APU has a lot of various facilities that are actually offered and
usable by students one major one that I think is amazing here in APU we have something called SALC,
it's essentially a learning center to help you learn foreign languages so for me when I first
came here my first semester I was able to go there frequently every single week to practice
Japanese, learn more about Japanese outside of my courses, all for free. Of course there's lots of
other facilities like our amazing library which has access to meeting rooms that are private and
soundproof access to Pangeo1 which is another amazing group work area where you can work with
everyone and of course we have general facilities like most colleges have being, amazing cafeteria.
We have campus shops large lecture rooms, smaller classrooms, meeting rooms and honestly just lots of
general scenery around there's lots of facilities here at APU, I can't possibly list them all.
APU is in a town called Beppu in Kyushu.
It's not a big city. It is a fairly small town in scale, but Beppu is also a tourist destination. About 8 million domestic tourists come here in a year.
Beppu is famous as "Onsen (hot spring) hell " but it's actually Onsen heaven thanks to all the good onsen.
Thanks to this, we have good facilities although it's a small town.
I would definitely recommend APU to other people that are really looking to get out of their
comfort zone and they want to go and experience something new. I'm going to a country you've never
been before and possibly speaking a language you didn't even know and that's a really big challenge
that if you can overcome it gives you and empowers you to continue moving forward and do really
anything you want to do in your life. If you want to have a unique learning experience together with
people coming from different backgrounds come to APU, this is the place where you want to be.