So I'm going to a Uni this year and I am looking for scholarships for my first year. Ave Maria in FL offered $8000 and I like the school -- despite not offering my major. But I am still looking for scholarships or anything help related to East Asian Study + Education Majors. (I might do business instead but I really like the idea of teaching languages as I do here at my HS.)

-- Do you know any particular scholarships or programs?
-- Although quite late, do you think it would be possible to get an education outside of the US and in a foreign country as an undergraduate student? (South Korea, Taiwan and Japan preferably.)
-- Any general advise for us students? I am the only one I know with a degree anything like this and most people I know are quick to give me advise on changing my area of study -- which is NOT going to happen. This is who I am and it's going to stay.

I'm lost and confused. I need your advise on this one RTKers!
どうぞよろしくお願いします！

I'm also fkd.

The only scholarship that can be gotten in my country is MEXT, and it is only for uni students who's major is Japanese.

And I'm finishing highschool this year.

I feel your pain.

There are some scholarships that accept people outside of the US, although I don't think I have seen one for Japanese majors -- sorry. :0

I'm thinking I'm going to just go to a Aver Maria for my first year and take some regular classes I would need to take anyways and then transfer to Baylor (TX) which has my major and international programs. Perhaps I can finally go abroad during my junior and senior years.

I have a BA in East Asian Studies from a top university. It's virtually impossible to get a job in your field with it. People don't understand what it is, because as an interdepartmental degree there is a lot of flexibility to it--you can focus on history, literature, political science, etc. of the area. As a student you're also disadvantaged because you don't get the support of one department.

I can't even teach at a private school (i.e. a decent paying job for some one with a degree in the humanities), like friends who graduated with the standard degrees--English, History, Comparative Literature etc.

Japanese, unless you're darn good (something that's not going to happen in 4 years of college courses if you're beginning from scratch), is not something you'll be able to teach, and is not offered widely at the secondary school level--at least in my experience. At the university level, you will have to be a highly qualified linguist to be able to compete with the native speakers, and even then you may be at a disadvantage. If you're thinking about teaching English abroad, get an ESL or TEFL degree, which may qualify you to teach in a real institution rather than an eikaiwa.

By all means, study Japanese. Study abroad. Minor in it or double major in it, if your school gives you that option, but don't make it your only major. If I had to do it again, I would probably get one of the "standard" degrees and just focus on Japan (e.g. History major specializing in Japanese history). An East Asian Studies degree, as much fun as it was to do, is just not worth it--unless, perhaps, you're planning on going into the State Dept.

What bluemarigolds said, you should learn something which will be relevant to a career, especially if you'd like to work there long term in the future. Japanese should only be a sideskill and is indeed something that can be learnt in ones own time - there are plenty of people who can speak Japanese already.

Even someone I know at one of the top universities in my country seems to have misgivings about East Asian Studies graduate employability...

I think I'm going to study Business management without scholarships after all in Japan, so If anyone knows any favourable universities, let me know.

Right now I'm thinking of studying at APU.(Ritsumeikan asia pacific)

Once you choose a school you should be able to go to the International Affairs or International Student Lobby and find all sorts of scholarships that they offer. For example, I went to my study abroad counselor and had the opportunity to study in Osaka for 1 semester at NO COST because my scholarship at the time actually would cover the fees and expenses since I was still a student at my university. I techinically was still enrolled at my university but I could take classes at the sister schools or something like that. So maybe your school has something like that. I don't know.

About the East Asian Studies degree. What the other people have said is all true, but if you are gung-ho on doing EAS don't let the lack of job prospects get you down. Think of EAS as a stepping stone. It's kind of like a big, expensive four year hoop that you have to jump through to get to the next hoop. Unfortunately, once you get through it, you don't have many more options for jobs or work than you did before you started your degree. You DO have more options (JET, Eikaiwa, other jobs that require some degree but don't care what the content was) but not many.


So it's a stepping stone. and treat it that way. Which means that you need to think about what your REAL LONG TERM GOAL is. EAS is just a step towards that REAL LONG TERM GOAL. For example, you want to become a Historian of Japanese weapons, or maybe you want to go into religious studies and teach at a university, or maybe you like Japanese literature and you want to teach it at the university level, etc etc. Figure out what EAS is going to do to help you accomplish your LONG TERM goal. That way you can focus all your energy to take the right classes to help you with that long term goal.


I got a degree in English so my situation is similar to you in that I'm not really quite qualified to teach at a highschool (I have to pass some tests and whatnot) and I can't really get a "job" because English is such a broad dicipline. But I knew that when I got into the program. I knew that I wanted to study Japanese literature and philosophy. So I did everythign in my power to take all the Japanese classes, all the Japanese literature courses in the philosophy and english department and get as much exposure to japanese stuff as I could while also fulfilling the requirements for English majors. In the end it worked out perfectly. So like a EAS major I was spread thoughout different departments (history, english, languages, etc) but I was still getting a degree in English (which, if you want to get a job, English is just like EAS in that it won't help you get one as easily as somethign like business or education).

But I didn't want a "job" after I graduated. I treated it like a stepping stone, just one more thing down and out of the way to reach my dream. I've almost achieved my dream I just got to get back to america after this year and finish my graduate degree (then get hired on a tenured track).

I'm not even in college yet, so take this with a grain of salt but:

Someone told me a little while ago, "In this day and age, one degree isn't enough. Unfortunately that is just one more step in your learning. Two degrees is optimal."

Often times you will need to take a degree in something conceptual, such as biology, history, or in this case east asian studies, then do another degree in something such as marketing, business, etc.

That way you will have the flexibility and skills to operate in the workforce.

I don't really understand it 100% but that is what I heard. Maybe that could work for you.

bizarrojosh Wrote:About the East Asian Studies degree. What the other people have said is all true, but if you are gung-ho on doing EAS don't let the lack of job prospects get you down. Think of EAS as a stepping stone. It's kind of like a big, expensive four year hoop that you have to jump through to get to the next hoop. Unfortunately, once you get through it, you don't have many more options for jobs or work than you did before you started your degree. You DO have more options (JET, Eikaiwa, other jobs that require some degree but don't care what the content was) but not many.

So it's a stepping stone. and treat it that way. Which means that you need to think about what your REAL LONG TERM GOAL is. EAS is just a step towards that REAL LONG TERM GOAL. For example, you want to become a Historian of Japanese weapons, or maybe you want to go into religious studies and teach at a university, or maybe you like Japanese literature and you want to teach it at the university level, etc etc. Figure out what EAS is going to do to help you accomplish your LONG TERM goal. That way you can focus all your energy to take the right classes to help you with that long term goal.

Well in fact as for me, I originally wanted to study architecture at my country, but I decided that being in Japan is more important to me, not to mention that I can visit Japanese architecture all I want and maybe go to explore it with my friends.

As far as architecture goes, I haven't found any good universities in which I will get in on English basis and can change to Japanese in my second year. And also the scholarship problem.

My father would pay for education that he thinks would will pay off in 3 years after graduation, but he says that he doesn't think that architecture will. Sad

I'm even thinking that my long term goal would be to break into the Japanese society and to know Japanese well enough.

I'm thinking of maybe studying architecture in japan after the business degree. Because I really want to get an architect's license.

zachandhobbes Wrote:I'm not even in college yet, so take this with a grain of salt but:

Someone told me a little while ago, "In this day and age, one degree isn't enough. Unfortunately that is just one more step in your learning. Two degrees is optimal."

Often times you will need to take a degree in something conceptual, such as biology, history, or in this case east asian studies, then do another degree in something such as marketing, business, etc.

That way you will have the flexibility and skills to operate in the workforce.

I don't really understand it 100% but that is what I heard. Maybe that could work for you.

Employers are just looking for people with technical skills and/or all around work experience, not a ragtag bunch of unapplicable academic pursuits. By all means, go get a Masters, but someone who's taken two Bachelors would seem like a career student in the eyes of HR. (ie. just do the most important one, unless you really have no worries about paying college tuition!)