Hi. I’m Wakana Sasaki, a sophomore at Tsuda University. I belong to the Department of English, where we learn about literature and other cultures through the language of English. We have classes not only in Japanese but also in English taught by native English speakers. Because of that, we can develop our listening skill as well as writing and speaking skills through daily classes.
When I was a freshman in the class of 2020, all classes were held online due to COVID-19. Also, the entrance ceremony was cancelled. It has been more than a year since I took the university entrance exam, and many students have not been able to enter the university since then. However, now that the infection situation has settled down, the entrance ceremony was held for students enrolled in the year 2020, taking into consideration the infection control measures. The ceremony was held at different times for each faculty, and students were also able to attend it online. I was very happy to be able to attend this ceremony, and meet my classmates whom I only met online through a year of absence.
With online classes, my campus life was very different from what we had expected. I’m going to introduce my daily time schedule.
8:00 get up
8:50~10:20 the 1st period
10:30~12:00 the 2nd period
~13:00 lunch time
13:00~14:30 the 3rd period
14:40~16:10 the 4th period
16:20~17:50 the 5th period
18:15~19:30 PUMB project ※ I will show you later.
19:30 dinner and bath
21:30 class review, preparation, and assignments
24:00 watch Youtube videos
25:00 go to bed
I have never taken a face-to-face class yet as a university student, but I would like to mention a few advantages of online classes with reference to this time schedule.
First, we don’t have to get up early in the morning since we don’t actually go to university.
Second, there is no need to move classrooms between classes, so we can spend those 10 minutes freely.
Thirdly, we don’t have to leave our house, so there are no restrictions on where we can do what we want to do. In fact, I am working on an activity called PUMB project, which I typically work on after 5th period (see the schedule above). The purpose of this project is to spread Japanese culture to the world. As of April 9, we have 6 Tsuda University students. For more information, please click here.
I have listed the advantages of online classes in those three points, but of course there are also some disadvantages. For example, I have not taken the same classes as my classmates’, and I have not been able to participate in club activities face to face. I use LINE and Zoom as communication tools with my classmates and club members to share information and have conversations. With my classmates, I not only talk about assignments, but also make video call to promote group activities in class. We share materials so that we can use them in class presentations and create them together online. As for club activities, the brass band I belong to cannot have any practices or performances so we have a monthly meeting on Zoom where members can chat with each other.
In addition, we also lost interaction with international students. Every year, a party was held on campus to welcome international students, but this year’s party was not held. There is no online communication with international students at the moment, but I hope that in 2021, we will be able to talk with international students online as well.
Although we are forced to live online due to the corona disaster, we students are doing various activities in our own way, such as communicating with our classmates and building our own community. I want to be able to demonstrate what I have gained in Tsuda University, no matter what the situation is.
Thanks for having the energy to read all of my page.