Thanks to the recommendation of my senior, I got the opportunity to come to Japan for further study. My hometown is located along the coast, and there are many Japanese companies, therefore, I began to be interested in Japan. Also, I want to make myself more international and be active in the Asian areas, so I planned to study economics in Japan and chose Graduate School of Social Sciences in Hiroshima University.

I often hear that education major of Hiroshima University is very good. In Japan, when you mention education, you will hear “East is Tsukuba University, West is Hiroshima University”. Moreover, in the famous Capital Normal University in China, many teaching staff graduated from Hiroshima University. Also, Hiroshima University Beijing Research Center is located in Capital Normal University. Therefore, Hiroshima University impressed me deeply before I came to study here.

Aspiring to gain experience as a student in Japan, I applied to my home university’s exchange program with Hiroshima University. The Faculty of Integrated Arts and Science is one of Japan’s best departments so, as an International Affairs major, I was very interested in taking classes. Also, my research thesis focuses on ijime (school bullying) in Japan so I looked forward to studying at the university’s renowned Faculty of Education.

The main reason I applied to Japan was to further improve my Japanese. I had also gotten many good Japanese friends back in Finland, so for me, Japan was a natural choice. From my home university (University of Jyväskylä) I could have applied to five different universities in Japan. The reason why I chose Hiroshima was because it seemed that I could freely take any courses that I wanted and because I had had a friend study here last year. Hiroshima University was also the southernmost university that I could have applied to, which is nice since I don’t really like cold.