Main BuildingsThe YNU campus was noticeably different from my university’s campus. It had at one time been the location of a golf course and some of that can still be seen today as it featured lush grass and tall, dense trees. Not only did it differentiate in greenery, YNU also had tall buildings that could have as many as eight stories, compared to SDSU where the tallest building only has around five stories. I’m still not sure on the direct size comparison as I mainly stayed in one part of the campus, the International Student Center (ISC). This building was somewhat the base of our program as well as other international programs YNU offered. All of the Japanese language courses were taught there and also several other elective classes that I had taken. The main floor lounge was where I had spent most of time on campus with other fellow exchange students and I had gotten to know a lot of friends in that one area. Other than the first week of attending YNU and the few classes that were in other buildings, I had rarely explored the rest of YNU’s campus, which is something I have slight regrets about not doing. The Commute to YNUYNU was easily accessible for us students in Gumyouji as it only took a twenty minute subway ride (one way) and at most a twenty minute walk. There were two paths to campus that everyone primarily took: the street path and the “cabbage patch” path. On my first trip to campus, in which I got lost and talk about more in another post, I took the street path. It was a standard industrial area with one long road with housing and shops on the side. The main part that was nice about this path was seeing the entrance to YNU which had plenty of small trees along a wooden stair path. Despite this way being slightly faster, I decided on taking the “cabbage patch” way nearly every time when going to or leaving campus. Given it’s namesake, this way featured a path along some farmland that during part of the year had cabbages. It also was at a higher elevation and you could across at downtown Yokohama, which I also appreciated looking at. Campus LifeIn terms of student life on campus, there was plenty to get involved with due to the variety of clubs, or circles, that they had available for students to join. This could range from music, sports, or specific interests, such as the “Cat Circle”. I knew a few friends that had joined the Kendo and Karate circles on campus and was able to hear from time to time how it was. Although they sounded interesting, nothing really peaked my interest in attending a meeting. The one time I had decided to try and join a circle, Taiko Circle (similar to a drumline), I had missed the information on where the meetings were held and then schoolwork began to pile up quickly, leaving me little chance to explore it. So my advice about clubs would be to not hesitate on attending a meeting, at least. You may find something you truly enjoy and may even make some new friends and form study groups to help alleviate the workload of school. Aside from circles, YNU held a couple of festivals throughout the school year that always had a big crowd. They had many student run booths for certain clubs as well as other events like “Mr. and Ms. YNU” which was basically a homecoming event.
In terms of lunch or food on campus, there were plenty of options for anyone to choose from. We had the choice of convenient store (conbini) food, several cafeterias, and even a couple of restaurants (which I never ate at for financial reasons). Most students would go to either the conbini or cafeteria as they would have good food for a very reasonable price. Toward the end of my program, I began choosing the conbini almost exclusively to save some time and money, but mostly money. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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