Hello everyone! It's Kemushi-chan Loretta!
I forgot—
Before we start this video, I wanted to say thank you
to everyone who checked out my work vlog that
was posted while I was actually filming the video that you're about to watch.
I know! x 5
A lot of you guys are like, "Shut up already and give us the answer."
"Why are you in Japan?"
"What's your job? What are you even doing over there?"
I know—
If you are one of the wonderful new faces who decided to swing by—
thank you—you probably haven't noticed that I already made
a job update video before,
and you probably haven't seen my Instagram stories where I've mentioned
what it is that I do. Anyways,
I'm bringing my local legal expert—
my lawyer—
who's going to sit down and explain my job and my Visa situation and how that all worked out.
All of that in a new video, but today specifically
I wanted to talk about one of the steps I forgot to mention.
So, sending you back in time to the video that I filmed before
where you're going to see more of this shadow.
3, 2, 1. Go!
One of the most common questions I get is
how did I actually come to Japan?
How did I actually start school here?
(How did I) go through the application?
Essays?
All the hurdles. I just didn't even talk about it.
I was just like, "Yeah, I'm here guys. Suck it."
But that's not good enough.
If you guys have been watching me on Instagram, especially Instagram stories,
you probably know that I recently got to do this really cool experience in
a place called Matsudo.
It's technically in Shiba,
but it's really, like, a suburb near Akihabara
and Ueno and all your favorite places.
I stayed in a really cool Airbnb, I got to try on samurai armor,
Tokyo. This was supposed to be Edo.
and visited this guy who had this, like, massive beard.
It was called Tiny Kitchen, but it was like this guy and his beard
just serving you food you never even thought would taste good.
And it did!
So when I was in Matsudo, I was walking under the train tracks,
and noticed there was this concept art.
It was a foreign resident who was staying in Matsudo during an artist in residency program
doing art for the city.
And the thing is, I've known about the Paradise Air program for
about six, seven years or so?
I once made this website that got hacked and burned and destroyed, but
I just researched all the scholarships that I wanted
and put them into a database and put them online so people could
search for scholarships and match them to their life situation.
One of the types of scholarships that was really popular
on that website was the artist in residency programs.
People didn't realize that you don't have to do a formal "study abroad"
to study abroad.
I walked down this tunnel and was like, "Oh my god! Wait, this is that Matsudo?"
Seeing Paradise Air reminded me again.
There are so many opportunities to live in a little neighborhood
and do whatever it is that you want abroad in Japan—
doesn't even have to be Japan.
Literally just do what you do
for little to sometimes usually virtually no money.
And it bothered me.
So many people don't know what these opportunities are
and when they do know, it's too late.
Maybe you're too old for a formal study abroad program.
You didn't go to the right type of college, or you didn't go to college, or
you didn't realize that your portfolio meant something,
or whatever it may be. So,
today I wanted to just really quickly chat—we got our laptops out—
we're just chatting.
Open your laptops.
I just wanted to share kind of a tip of how I actually found these opportunities
that made my life better.
These are tips on how to get yourself some new ideas
whether you're an adult, working adult, current student, university student, high school student, etc.
We're learning how to fish today.
If you are a student, you are affiliated to a school that has a lot more resources
and research behind them than you do.
Your career center, shoot them an email.
A department head, if there's an Asian Studies or Japanese Studies, or something like that.
Go talk to these people first, and ask them if there's something for you.
While you're at it, don't forget to also go check out the library.
I get a lot of beginner questions asking where to start with Japanese.
Don't spend any money to start.
Definitely learn hiragana, katakana, and then
swing down to your school library or your local library
and see if they have any Japanese books.
If they don't, order them.
Take advantage of that—the shadows are at it again.
When to start looking for scholarships.
For short-term programs, anything from a few months all the way up to a year,
you want to start looking somewhere about half a year to a year in advance.
If you're looking at long-term programs
next year, you want to start thinking about and moving on it now.
It's too late for this year's summer.
When you're trying to find programs to take you abroad for cheap and or free,
you want to start looking half a year to a year in advance.
What to look for. I'm using the word "scholarships" broadly,
but words like, obviously, "scholarships"
but we also have "funds", "fellowships", "research", "grants", etc.
These are the types of words you want to use in a Google search.
It's not always going to be called a scholarship,
it may be a grant.
Language school programs and scholarships to go to language school for free.
Listen up!
There are a few occasional funds, grants, scholarships,
and contests to help fund formal language school programs.
Language schools in general are usually privately funded.
That being said, there are still opportunities to do a language school program
without having to google the word "language school".
For example, things like language intensive programs.
If you are Australian, looking for things like the Hamer scholarship.
If you are American, the CLS program.
There are so many cities across Japan that have a "sister school"
or a "sister city" somewhere out in the world.
For example the city that I just visited, Matsudo,
is sister cities with Whitehorse in Australia.
Looking for actual language schools in your country.
For example, when I was in New York, I used to go to the Tenri Cultural Institute at least one or two times a week.
And they had a sister program here in Japan
with their own specific language school program, but it's not going to come up in a normal Google search
if you don't go in through kind of the sister city angle.
If you are from the EU, you may already be familiar with the Vulcanus program.
If you have technical or engineering type skills,
this is something where you are basically aiming towards
an internship, but there is a language-intensive training program
before you're allowed to do that part.
So it's a language school program within a larger program,
but it wouldn't come up if you searched
"language school Japan scholarship".
You have to start getting creative.
So, the first thing you need to do,
is tell everybody.
If you're trying to study abroad, if you're trying to just live abroad,
if you're trying to just try it for a little bit, whatever it is that you're trying to do,
know what it is and tell people that.
Tell your favorite teacher, school career center, piano teacher, your department head,
favorite teacher, personal circle, your church, your synagogue,
your friends. Literally tell any people,
especially associations.
Googling and all that jazz is great,
but your search will go so much faster
if there are many more people with their ear to the ground.
Some people hear opportunities about Japan, and
they'll just think to tell you just because they knew that you were interested.
Check your consulate.
Another one is the Japan Foundation.
You know, the guys who send out your favorite test every year.
They have specific scholarships and opportunities in their regions sometimes.
You have to let them know that you exist.
This worked incredibly well for me because
the first two times I came to Japan on a scholarship.
The CLS (Critical Language Scholarship) scholarship, and the other one was through the Freeman Foundation.
I'd never even googled for (them). I didn't even know they existed.
One of my best friends was trying to apply to the Turkish program.
That was the first year that CLS even existed, and that gave me that advantage because
so few people actually knew about it, and there was such less competition.
When you figure out what it is that you want to do,
and you tell everybody about it,
you annoy them with it, you'll find that that grapevine starts to work for you.
People start to give you information that can help you get your goals done faster,
and it gets you ahead of the curve.
#2—this is a techy tip, kinda hack type of thing—
is Google Alerts.
Setting up a Google Alert is one of the things that can expand that grapevine
so you don't have to keep googling all the time.
"Japan scholarship"
"Graduate degree Japan"
"American" "US"
"Japan adult linguistics"
Whatever my major was, I put in a whole list of different Google Alerts,
set it that every day if there was any new hits with something about that,
to send it directly to me via email.
Then in Gmail, I had a special folder for Japan Google Alerts,
and a filter so that every time a Google Alert came in through my email,
it would automatically filter and land in that folder,
so all I had to every morning, check my emails, check the news,
check the weather, check my Google Alerts.
Am I going to Japan tomorrow? Maybe.
Little hack that kept me kind of above the curve.
Doing that makes sure that you don't miss deadlines.
There's nothing worse than finding out there's this perfect scholarship,
but you missed the deadline by like two weeks.
I hate that.
Google Alerts, set them up,
put them in a folder, or don't.
Keep on top of new opportunities so that you don't miss them—this year.
So the keywords, the search, what to google.
If you search Japan scholarship, or Japanese scholarship,
or language school scholarship,
you're not really going to find anything.
You have to figure out ways to narrow it down
by figuring out what is special about you.
What is your niche? You got to hone it, and you got to own it.
And that's going to help you find more specific scholarships and more opportunities.
First of all, if you're a student, start with your school name.
For me, I went to William and Mary
checking for William and Mary scholarship abroad.
Your major. "Math abroad", "Graphic design scholarship abroad".
You'll start to find that a lot of scholarships don't say "Japan" in the name
but they just say "study abroad" or a certain type of skillset.
But sometimes you can apply those scholarships anywhere.
The other things that make really great niche search terms are, for example,
your ethnicity, your income, your orientation
your city, your hobbies, your portfolios, your skillset, your job.
"Dance grant Asia"
"Art program Japan"
"Engineering scholarship abroad"
Try to find these different combinations of words that make
niche profiles of who you are because there are some that are going to be Japan specific,
and some of them aren't.
"French citizen"
"US citizen"
UK, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Brazil, EU.
"Country name abroad fellowship"
or scholarship.
Design scholarships, being a woman opens you up to a lot of scholarships.
Women in design, women in teaching.
This is how I found some of my favorite scholarships. For example, the FEA—the Fund for Education Abroad.
The GRIT Scholarships. These are for nontraditional types of study abroad, so
if you are a community college, if you are a first-generation student, if you're a minority.
Don't be afraid to leverage what you've got.
If you have a portfolio, artist in residence programs are huge!
Paradise Air, like I mentioned earlier,
ARCUS, there's Ongoing AIR, there's Kamiyama.
In addition to scholarships, there are so many opportunities just to be more involved.
There are events, local programs, things that you can do even back home.
If you look at Japan Foundation, Japan Society,
embassies, and consulates.
If you google these words, you'll start to find really interesting programs.
For example, I'm not from the UK, but I stumbled on this literally this morning.
There's a program in the UK where you can bring Japanese teachers to your school.
This one's called Teaching Step Out.
You can call them to your school to try out doing a formal class
or just to do teaching at your local Japanese club or Japan club.
That's something that you can actually ask your school to do.
There are speech contests, like through one of my favorite providers, the KCC-JEE in Chicago.
They run a pretty regular contest where high school students can go abroad,
but they also have job opportunities.
They have their own, basically, sister city program.
They have another branch out in Japan.
There's Fullbright Programs.There's even the Ship for World Youth
where you don't even go to Japan,
you go on a boat that's run in affiliation with the Japanese government.
It's an exchange program that happens on a boat.
But again, if you search "Japanese language program", this wouldn't come up.
You can just speak Japanese without even having to be in Japan.
So think things like that.
The Asian Development Bank program,
ADB. It's not just school programs, but they also have jobs and internships.
Relatives! If you have a Japanese relative somewhere up in the mix,
there's the Dream Come True program.
That's coming up too. And of course, one of my favorites,
MEXT is coming up in about three months.
If you want to go to Japan at any point in the next year or two,
it's time to start looking now, and I want to just put that bug in your ear.
Three quick points about applications and interviews.
During your application and doing your essays,
make sure you actually know why you want to go to Japan.
A five-year, maybe even a ten-year plan,
and it has to be something beyond
I've never been there before, or I like anime, or I just want to go.
These are not good enough; that's like everyone.
What else do you have? Do you have a certain skillset?
In the future, do you want to work in a company that uses Japanese?
Do you want to design games? Do you want to show people in Japan more about your city?
It's not just your grades. When proctors are looking at your application,
they're looking are you actually hungry to go abroad, or would it just be nice?
Do you actually need the scholarship to get down your career path,
or would it just be kind of fun?
Is this a return on investment? If they pay for you
to go to this program, are you going to be the type of person who will continue to spread the word,
who will continue to invite other students?
When they put their money into you, will it spread to more people?
Whenever I had applications or essays, I wrote truthfully—don't lie—that I did not have the financial means
at that point to come to Japan.
And if I was not able to come to Japan,
I would not be able to do the job, the work how I did and still do
when to create other scholarship programs for other students.
I want to create job opportunities, I want to create connections,
I've specifically tried to frame every application to say, "When you invest in me, it's going to come back ten-fold."
That's really going to make your application stand out.
If you don't know exactly what it is you want to do with Japan or Japanese,
this is a good time to think about it.
Start getting that in your mind so that when you tell people you want to go abroad,
you can tell them why.
Get passionate about it, know what it is that you're about,
and go out there and do it!
If you happen to apply for a scholarship program that has an interview piece,
be aware: they may not say it in the actual application or in the actual description,
but be prepared, they are probably going to ask you to speak Japanese—if you can.
I get this question a lot: "Do I have to be able to speak Japanese to do the MEXT scholarship?" (For example)
"Does this hurt my application?" It doesn't hurt your application, but if there are two people in the running,
and the other person does speak Japanese and you don't,
they're likely going to go for the other person.
You should be prepared, and you should be enthusiastic
about using Japanese, about getting to Japan, and about doing something concrete with that.
I have been ambushed on many occasions
where I thought I was just going to talk about my essays and my resumes,
and I went in, and they were like, "Alright, shall we do this in Japanese?"
And I was like, are you kidding me?
So yeah, so that's my chat for today.
It is clearly getting dark outside, and the day is over.
I'm going to be doing a lot of content about jobs and other things,
but it's still pretty early in the year, and there are lot of opportunities coming up that I hope you don't miss
just because you weren't looking.
So, start telling your friends, get your Google Alerts going,
and start thinking about why you want to go there and what makes you special.
Literally. Like, actually think about it.
If you guys have any scholarships that you really liked or thought were really successful for you,
or even just programs or ideas that you thought were really interesting,
let me know in a comment below.
Everyone else would be really curious to hear about it too.
Thank you for watching today. I'll see you guys in the comments.
See you next time!
Bye~!