Mary Lun: Blog Post #2

My time in Japan was amazing! A good balance of educational and recreational thanks to partnership with CIEE who organized a thoughtful itinerary for us. Our first week was in Tokyo and our second week was in Kyoto. Some itinerary highlights include a baseball game giving us a shoutout on the big screen, watching a sumo wrestling tournament in person and placing bets with my group on who would win, a deer at Nara ripping a paper bag I was carrying into half thinking I was hiding snacks in there, visiting the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, and reaching the top of the Fushimi Inari shrine.

In between scheduled events, we were also given plenty for free time to roam around and explore for ourselves. We made stops at DisneySea, Universal Studios, the viral ramen place Ichiran, Osaka, Shibuya, multiple Pokemon Centers, a kimono rental, and, of course, Don Quijote. Funnily enough, before leaving for Japan I had decided to limit myself to a budget of about $850 which was roughly 3/4ths of my savings. Of course, once I actually got there that budget when straight out the window.

Scholarships aided a lot in helping me truly enjoy the trip and not focus on finances while I was there. As a first-gen student, I went into college wanting to do study abroad but putting it off because I knew I wouldn’t be able to cover program and travel costs, so when I applied for this program I reached out to TCU’s financial aid office about my options and applied to as many outside scholarships that applied to my program as I could. TCU ended up offering generous aid in covering tuition and program related fees and the Gilman Scholarship provided the extra funding I needed to cover remaining costs and necessities where needed.  If you’re having doubts about going study abroad because of lack of funding, there are plenty of programs like Gilman that can offer you the aid needed to make ends meet.

For the “study” half of study abroad, we had lectures twice a week from speakers in the industry they were lecturing about. We had lectures over the yakuza, poverty in Japan, rights of foreign spouses and Japan’s divorce scene, and the death penalty and human rights in Japan. As a computer science major who applied to the program in hopes of covering cybercrime related topics, learning about these issues instead had me considering the ways implementation of technology may have made an impact. To list a few examples, digital policing influences how marginalized groups are monitored, automation reshapes labor markets and deepens economic inequality, and algorithmic biases can affect everything from immigration decisions to criminal sentencing. Depending on the issue, technology could either reinforce inequality or promote fairness.

Overall, the program gave me memories I can cherish and have opened my worldview up to consider ways in which what I’m studying can impact systems in place around the world. I’m grateful I was able to have this experience and hope those reading this will consider going abroad as well.