From student council to the classroom to the streets of Tokyo I did everything and anything in Japan that I could. 

A trait that I have developed during my time here is independence and problem solving. When you are in another country, even if you are with a group of people, there are so many opportunities and situations that throw you into a problem that you have to figure out on your own. For example, the Tokyo train system was incredibly difficult to navigate, but it developed my ability to assess the situation and formulate a solution with a cool head. This will help me personally and professionally. I’ve already noticed that I am even better at handling situations and tasks that pop up unexpectedly. I can use this along with my already developed soft skill of flexibility to be able to be more adaptable in the workplace and at school. 

A trait I was working on developing before I went abroad was the ability to do what I needed to do as soon as it popped up. Aka, stop procrastinating. When I was doing my program, I needed to adjust to a huge daily workload and I needed to do it fast. With the intensive Japanese language course that I was doing, day one we had to go home with 30-50 vocabulary, 2-3 grammar points, and 20 kanji to learn daily. By the second day, we had two quizzes every day and a new speech every other day. The class was small, only two of us since the others transferred higher or lower, meaning all the attention during class was on us. I realized it was an amazing opportunity. While other classes had 5-8 people in them, our level only had two. That’s practically private lessons at that point. But I had to get my act together fast. The first 4 weeks of the program I was mostly teaching myself how to study this amount of material in an efficient manner and in a way that the topic of study would stick with me. I realized that I could not get even a day behind or I would be behind the entire program. I would spend 7-8 hours sitting in a starbucks by the second week doing daily review, hw, studying for quizzes, then review of material for the next day. I’ve never had that level of dedication to studying before. I was determined to seize the opportunity I was given and learn as much as I could from the teacher that was there on their own time for us. 

I started to become more punctual and started to really recognize and understand that punctuality is respect to the person you are meeting. My Japanese teachers were all a part of a Japanese language teaching organization called AJALT. They were there early in the morning, sometimes commuting 1-2 hours from their houses on the outskirts of Tokyo just to come into downtown Tokyo to teach us. I developed great relationships with my teachers and to show my respect for that I made sure that I woke up when I needed to be on time to class. 

All of these soft skills are easily transferable to school and the workplace. Everyone needs to develop problem solving, presentation, and punctuality skills. But I went a step further in my development of them by looking at why they are such core skills and applying them in real time. 

That main goal that I set out to achieve from the beginning of the trip, as I said in post one, was to gain discipline. I have accomplished that goal. I have a new found confidence to tackle any type of problem thrown my way and take action to solve it right away.  I have gained everything I hoped for and more from this trip and am excited to tackle what is next. 

Lilianna Todorowski