Kiyo Nakamura, who is in her third year at the Department of International Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Economics, was selected as a student studying abroad to represent the 3rd Group for the Leap for Tomorrow! Study Abroad Campaign, a campaign implemented by MEXT with donations of 20 billion yen from the private sector aimed at dispatching 10 thousand Japanese students overseas by 2020 for the first time from Kochi University. To mark the occasion, an informal meeting was held between the university president and Miss Nakamura at the president’s office on Friday, July 24.

In the meeting, Miss Nakamura told the president that she had entered Kochi University with a view to studying overseas, and prior to the departure for the study abroad this August, she spent most of her spring break time thinking what she would and could do during the study abroad period.

In answering the question as to what she thought was the reason for the selection, Nakamura said, “I think it is human nature to support someone who is willing to make every effort to do something with a clear purpose,” and the president offered her a word of encouragement, telling her to actively socialize with different people from different cultural backgrounds (non-Japanese) and see herself in a different light and establish her identity.

Miss Nakamura intends to learn about English teaching at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which is a Kochi University’s partner university, and participated in an internship program at a Japanese language tutoring class for approximately nine months until next June. On her return home, we will ask her for cooperation in the promotion of overseas study programs.