School in Japan is interesting. When I used to teach children and junior high school students, I remember how tired many of the students were when they came to class. Each and every one of them were loaded with homework, studying, and club activities. I would ask them what time they would wake up and it was always before 6 a.m.. These students were around 10-12 years in age, and they already had a rough schedule like this. I could not believe it! When I was their age, I did my homework and made good grades, but I also played video games and watched TV.
However, college was a little different than what I was expecting. For me, I had to do a lot of research and consistently write papers. The same was for graduate school, where writing papers longer than 20 pages wasn’t uncommon. My Japanese friend was surprised. For him, university life was fun and engaging, where he would go out to drink with friends and party. Granted, this was undergraduate, so I’m sure it is different in the graduate level, but it was an interesting contrast.
In America, junior high school (or “middle school”) and high school isn’t as busy or difficult as it is in Japan. But apparently, it switches around when university starts, as universities in America require quite a lot of studying compared to Japan.
Questions:
1) What was your life like in junior high school? How busy were you?
2) What club activities were you in when you were in junior high school and high school?
3) Did you go to university? If you did, what did you study?
4) Did you ever go to school in another country? If so, where did you go?
5) What clubs or circles were you in in college? What did you do?
Key Words and Phrases:
were loaded with / in age / expecting /consistently
granted / undergraduate / graduate / Apparently
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