By TAKASHI TAKIZAWA/ Staff Writer
January 15, 2025 at 07:00 JST
AKITA--A single-department college nestled in a fairly remote forest in this northern prefecture has become a leading hunting ground for top talent in Japan.
The campus of Akita International University (AIU) is located a 30-minute drive from the heart of Akita city. A modest 170 students per grade are enrolled.
Officials from leading corporations, including Japan Airlines Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., and government offices, regularly travel from Tokyo to visit the school.
In fact, 60 to 70 enterprises organized guidance sessions for job seekers at AIU in 2023.
The students are in high demand because the university’s curriculum, including a mandatory study-abroad program, has produced highly self-motivated young workers.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 200 businesses would flood the campus. The global health scare has pushed many employers to shift to online guidance sessions.
DISTINCTIVE APPROACHES
AIU was established by Akita Prefecture in 2004 on the former site of the Akita campus of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.
It was Japan’s first public college corporation with management autonomy.
The late Mineo Nakajima, who once served as president of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, among other important positions, was the first head of AIU.
All classes at AIU are offered in English, and students are obligated to study abroad for a year.
AIU’s pioneering initiatives also include keeping its library open at all times, and employing an autumn enrollment system, unlike spring admissions common in Japanese universities.
Its annual tuition fee is 700,000 yen ($4,400), which includes the costs of overseas schooling under the college’s student exchange program. This provision helps mitigate the otherwise high expenses of studying abroad.
SELF-DRIVEN ATTITUDE
One day in early December, a recruiter from a major general contractor showed up at the campus and explained the attraction of AIU students.
“The school’s stringent educational environment is famed especially for the mandatory study-abroad program,” said the recruiter. “Additionally, students are awfully self-motivated since they deliberately choose Akita over urban colleges. Their strong sense of purpose and proactive mindset are significant advantages.”
The recruiter added that the students’ flexibility is notable.
“Via overseas learning experiences in particular, they gain excellent skills to embrace diverse values and adapt to new surroundings,” the official said.
Yukimi Ouchi, who joined AIU in its seventh year and is now on the recruitment team at leading chemical maker Mitsui Chemicals Inc., said the strength of AIU graduates lies in their “individual superiority.”
“Students enrolled in large colleges and universities in urban zones usually have a range of options at hand, while those at AIU have limited access to resources if they remain passive,” Ouchi said. “This encourages (AIU) students to develop the ability to think and act on their own, which is precisely the quality that corporations seek in workers.”
As AIU aims to nurture global leaders, 25 percent of enrollees come from outside Japan, and first-year students are expected to live with
international students in a dedicated dormitory.
Discussion-based liberal arts classes are conducted in English in small groups. Students must study at one of AIU’s 203 partner institutions across 51 countries and regions for at least one year.
More than 80 percent of Japanese students enter AIU from outside Akita Prefecture. Around 30 percent come from the Tokyo metropolitan area, and 10 percent each hail from the Kansai region and Akita Prefecture.
Most enrollees have graduated from public high schools.
All AIU graduates effectively secure employment every year at Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Corp. and other prominent companies in Japan.
Due to this exceptional job-landing rate, the public college has garnered considerable attention throughout Japan.
GUTS AND BOLDNESS
However, Yoshitaka Kumagai, vice president of AIU, said the school operator does not make any special efforts to cater to corporations’ needs.
“We are just doing what we should do,” Kumagai said. “We have never focused on meeting the requirements of companies.”
He added: “Living with international learners and studying overseas, our students inevitably clash with one another. They must constantly make compromises, tough it out, and accept one another in their academic life.”
Kumagai stressed that the school’s rigorous evaluation standards are key to the students’ development.
“As their academic results are assessed strictly, students who complete courses outside Japan, much like samurai in errantry, can naturally develop guts and boldness,” he said. “Those individuals are highly valued by corporations.”
Of course, AIU’s graduates were not considered top picks in Japan Inc. when the school first opened.
Business operators back then adhered to a deeply rooted tradition of automatically eliminating applicants with less prestigious educational backgrounds from recruitment campaigns.
A staff member of AIU’s career development center said school representatives previously found it difficult to even make appointments with companies’ recruitment personnel.
“I heard from a colleague who knows our school’s earliest days that AIU staffers would tour introductory seminars involving multiple companies” to meet corporate recruiters, the official said. “They worked out 30-second pitches to efficiently publicize our university.”
HIGH-PROFILE AMONG APPLICANTS
AIU is surging in popularity among high schoolers nationwide. Its entrance examinations are currently as difficult as those of Japan’s top schools, including Waseda University and Keio University.
Nearly 2,000 people in Japan applied to attend an open campus event hosted by AIU in September, both in person and online.
A third-year high school student participated from Hokkaido.
“Thinking about studying abroad, I discovered the plan is unrealistic given my financial situation,” he said. “At this university, I can do research in the same environment as that of schools outside Japan at a much cheaper rate.”
A third-year high school girl from Fukuoka Prefecture spoke of her dream of working overseas as a Japanese language teacher.
“I do not care at all where the school exists,” she said. “The only thing that does matter to me is whether I can learn what I want.”
Looking back on the school’s 20-year history, Kumagai said AIU rolls out the red carpet for these applicants.
“Young enthusiastic individuals determined to dive into a challenging environment flock to our school, fostering a unique culture here,” Kumagai said. “No other colleges provide such rich programs to cultivate human resources.”
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