- About Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is located in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. Indiana is the 17th largest state in the U.S. in terms of population, and Terre Haute is the 15th largest city in the country. The university is located about a 20-minute drive from downtown. The university has approximately 2,000 students and has been ranked No. 1 in the U.S. Tech rankings for 24 consecutive years. Small class sizes provide attentive instruction, and professors welcome questions from students.
- Classes
I took two English classes and one programming class. In the reading and writing English class, we read articles, answer questions, summarize, and write an essay at the end of each week. Basically, in all of the assignments, the professor provides guidance and corrections, which make it easy to progress in learning. In the speaking and listening classes, we have group dialogues, exchanging our own experiences and opinions on the subject matter. The number of Chinese students was quite large and they were quite fluent in English, but we had to let that go and speak up. In the programming class, there is a team development project at the end. If they do not communicate actively, gaps in understanding will occur, and this will be an obstacle to development, so they must communicate frequently.
- Living
Most of freshmen and exchange students will be staying in dormitories. There are several different types of dormitories, each with a very different atmosphere. Think of it like Harry Potter, and you'll be close. Basically, you will get along with your roommate and other students living on the same level. Some dormitories can be noisy even until late at night, but that's just luck, so it's best to give up or ask them to be quiet. There is no shortage of events in the dormitories. Every Saturday night, there is an opportunity to go out to eat with students from the same level. It is called a floor dinner. There are also other events such as watching anime at the same time, inter-dorm sports tournaments, and other things happening every day. It is a good idea to participate as much as possible.
What is the purpose of your study abroad? It may be to improve your language skills, experience a different culture, challenge yourself with something unknown, or simply to go abroad. Anyway, I think it doesn't matter what it is. Whatever it is, studying abroad with a goal in mind is a good thing, but once you arrive, you will probably have other goals in mind in the face of the vastness of the United States. A student at Tohoku University who was studying abroad with me has started strength training at a gym. His body continues to grow. I started playing the piano. I can now play at least the Turkish March, although it is still a little rusty. Of course, I have not forgotten the goals I had before I left Japan. What I am trying to say is that setting a goal in advance only gives you the courage to enter a study abroad program, but once there, there are many more objectives and problems that you must summon up the courage to solve. It may be something as small as making sure you can order properly in a restaurant, or as big as making a girlfriend before you return to Japan. Let me give you a concrete example. Here are some problems I encountered while studying abroad and how I handled them. I won't introduce what I couldn't handle. It is inevitable that I could not learn to understand the English of the Chinese people who came from Singapore. But we were able to communicate.
There are about four days off in the fall semester at Rose-Hulman. It is too short to do something, but too long to do nothing. I went to Chicago during this period. Chicago is a big city close to Terre Haute, where Rose-Hulman is located, but it is only about four hours away by car. It was like taking a bus from Aizu to Tokyo. However, I could not use neither buses nor trains. The bus and train stations are quite a distance away, and it is difficult to get to Chicago in the morning due to the schedule. The only way to get to Chicago was to get a ride in someone's car, but none of my friends around me had a car and were going to Chicago. I could have given up at this point and chosen to spend a few days on an empty campus, but I decided to stick it out a little longer. First, I asked the students living in the same dorm, probably about 30 of them, then the buddy program students and their friends, and then the Turkish students I met on the first day and their friends. The result was zero. I could have given up at this point and opted to hang out in downtown Terre Haute for four days in a row, but Terre Haute was too cohesive a town to do that, so I decided to stick around a little longer. A student in the same English class was going to Chicago in a friend's car, so I asked if I could ride with them. The reply came back that the seats were already taken. Things just didn't seem to work out. Finally, I found a friend who was going to Chicago in a rental car and asked him for a ride. This option also disappeared when there were no rental cars available. Despite everything, the car that the friend had bought arrived the afternoon before our departure, so it all worked out somehow.
I talked to many people and chatted with many people before reaching this conclusion. I was rejected a lot and suffered a lot. I think it was a pretty reckless and brazen move. The Japanese student I was with asked me why I was so obsessed with Chicago, but unlike that student who is staying for 10 months, I am staying for 3 months and only have 2 breaks, including this fall break, in which I can travel. Chicago is not four hours away, but more than a dozen hours away, including the plane ride. It is not a place I can go so easily if I miss this timing. Studying abroad would surely be the same thing. After you become a working adult, you have much less time and opportunities than you do now. Is it right to avoid studying abroad just because there are no classes you want to take or because you are somewhat afraid of it? The United States is not a place that can be described only by the four words "America. It is a place that cannot be understood unless one actually goes there. In fact, the vastness of the U.S. may even be more confusing to you after you have actually been there. Studying abroad does not only mean attending university lectures in English. The culture, the cityscapes, the neon signs you have never seen before will expand your world and sometimes torture you. But that, I believe, is what studying abroad is all about. What awaits you after the pain is entirely up to you. It may be that after the suffering, there will be more suffering, or it may be that there will be a joy that you have never experienced before. Whatever the case may be, you must not forget that both pain and joy are waiting for you when you choose to study abroad.
