Budiawan 1

Mochammad Genta Alam Budiawan

1TE19644P
Japanese Issues
November 29, 2019

The Difference Between Universities In Japan And Indonesia

As an international student that came from a completely different country than Japan, the
first thing that pops out in my mind when we discuss university is ‘How the Japanese University
differs from my country’s university? How different the lifestyle is?’ So, out of curiosity, I asked
my friends in Indonesia about this, also using my knowledge from researching on the internet
and some discussions with my group partners.

When you talk about university the first thing that comes to mind is ‘ How to enter it? ‘
The main thing in Japanese university that I heard is it’s really hard to enter but easy to graduate
from. On the contrary, in Indonesia, there are a lot of ways to enter a university. I’m not going to
say that it is easier, but the chances are pretty high to enter some universities because some
universities may hold more than one enrollment for one academic year. For example, one
university may hold the recommendation enrollment, the national standardized test screening, the
private test enrollment, and for international student exam (That, of course, Indonesian student
can join too ) in total there are almost 4 ways to enter 1 specified university, and if you fail
whether in recommendation enrollment, or national standardized test enrollment you can always
try for the private and international student exam. Therefore, the chance to get into a specified
university is pretty high but also competitive.

In Japan, the clubs are a very serious thing like if going to join some clubs it really needs
some commitment, for example, if you join basketball clubs you need to join the exercise that is
scheduled beforehand. Meanwhile in Indonesia, although it’s really hard to join clubs because
some clubs are very selective and the new-comer sometimes treated harshly by their seniors in
some selection before joining the clubs ( Yes it’s kind of weird to have some selection just to
join some clubs but, it is what it is. ) , It’s very easy to quit the clubs or just come once in a while
to join some exercise or club meetings.
 Budiawan 2

The biggest difference that I actually experienced is that the academic schedule in
Japanese university feels very measured and detailed, such as the date of homework to hand in
and topics for each lecture on a specified date. On the other hand in Indonesia, I asked a few
friends that some of the professors are just doing it as he/she likes, For example, changing the
due date of an assignment, changing the date of the test, canceling the class on the d-day, and
even worse changing the time of the class on the d-day. Not all professors are doing this but it’s
common in Indonesia to have such a flexible and changing academic schedule.

In conclusion, both universities in Japan and Indonesia have their own ways of doing
things, there are many things that differ Indonesian and Japanese university but in this essay, I
highlighted three of them and the rest are the topics for the other day.