By Mai Ramirez

The Japanese Plus students got invited to attend the 75th anniversary NAFSA Annual Conference and Expo, the world’s largest association dedicated to international education and exchange. I was very excited to be attending the event because it’s an event that is held every few years in different places of the world.  When arriving at the NAFSA event, we met other high school students from different schools who are also learning Japanese. It was amazing to see other students around my age who had the same passion and interest in learning Japanese. We had the chance to interact with the other high school students during the conference, and subsequently we were given the assignment to introduce a student from a different high school in Japanese. I was nervous about having a conversation in Japanese with other students because we all had different levels of Japanese, but later on I learned that the high school student that I was with like me only had 1 year of learning Japanese which made me feel less nervous since we had something in common.

During the conference we also received a COI T-shirt with the words “Connection, Opportunity, and Initiative” which I believe were the perfect words to describe the event and high school student language learners. We also got a NAFSA bag and a bag from the JET program which I liked very much. And we received different Japanese candies, pens/pencils, and merch from different  universities in Japan. However, the most valuable experience from this conference is being able to hear the personal experience and advice from people of different organizations about their language learning and studying abroad journey. Some of the people we were able to meet are Taichi Kaneshiro, Education Counselor, and Tim Folsom, Education Coordinator, at the Embassy of Japan.

They presented the JET Program and we learned that The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program is an opportunity for young adults to study abroad, work in schools,  and boards of education across Japan. When presenting the different positions people can take through the JET program, the position that interested me the most is being an Assistant Language Teacher. The reason is because we are able to work with Japanese teachers to help enrich and improve Japanese students’ English. Moreover, being able to interact, make connections, and share each other’s culture with Japanese students of different ages through activities and clubs sounds amazing and a lot of fun!

On a final note, I am very grateful to receive the opportunity to go to the NAFSA event and take part in the COI program as it stoked my enthusiasm and gave me a push to pursue studying abroad and to learn and experience Japanese culture and not just the Japanese language.