Back to School - Certificate in Japanese Language Studies

One of the things on my Japan "to-do" list is learn the Japanese language well enough to have small spurts of conversation. About four months after arriving in Japan, John and I signed up for a community center Japanese language course on base. In the first four weeks of class, we learned a lot. Then we advanced to the higher level community center course. Unfortunately, the level of Japanese spoken in this course ranged from barely (me and John) to advanced. The teacher spent most of the time conversing in Japanese with the more advanced Japanese speakers and pausing to tell the rest of the class some vocabulary words. Unfortunately this was information I couldn't use. I was hoping to learn sentence structure, past, present and future tense, formal words vs informal and basically start to grasp the nuances of the language. Listening to someone talk about their weekend in Yokohama for forty-five minutes was not cutting it for me.

So, I learned about a financial aid program for military spouses. It will pay for a certificate course or associate's degree up to $4,000 a year. In order to apply for the financial aid, you have to meet very specific requirements including submitting an education plan to show exactly what courses you will use the money to complete. Included in your education plan, you have to lay out your educational goals. The money can not be used for a certificate or degree in general studies. Actually, if any military spouse out there reading this wants to take advantage of this program, let me know and I'll send you the website. This program has already taken quite a budget hit when they ceased allowing it to be used for bachelor's degrees. It might not be around much longer.

I was approved for the financial aid and will start earning my certificate in Japanese Language Studies in the spring. I will take a total of four college level Japanese language courses, one Japanese politics course and one Japanese literature course. If all goes well, I want to find a way to move into the associate's degree program for the same concentration, unfortunately, the financial aid will not cover an associate's degree for Japanese Language Studies.

I am very excited about this and can't wait to start to really learn the language. I'll be going to the University of Maryland University College - Asia, which has a combination of classroom courses on base and Internet courses.

Had to share, I'm stoked!