A Story of Japanese Student: Yuki studying Development and Environment 1

Hello, everyone!

I am Yoko, doing the Japanese Ambassador at UEA :)

As a part of my role, I have collected Japanese students' stories at UEA and this time I would like to introduce Yuki, a undergraduate student studying International Development and the Environment. 

Hi, I’m Yuki Matoba, a 3rd-year student studying International Development and the Environment. The course contents include, for example, trade-off between economic development and the environmental degradation, conflict over natural resources, climate change and development of environmental laws in the EU. Apart from these environment-related modules I also have taken modules in other field of developmental studies such as education, wars and conflict and developmental economics.

What I like about the DEV in UEA is that the modules are very practical rather than just theory-based throughout the three-year degree, which includes statistical study, field work in Scotland and the Development Work Experience where you have to work for a developmental organisation for 2-5 months over summer.

 When I started the degree two years ago, I really struggled with native English because it is very different from what international students speak. Eventually I got used to by joining many societies, events and clubs and getting myself to keep trying, and now I enjoy speaking English, however it took me entire two years. UEA has a great student satisfaction, having more than 200 societies and more than 60 of sports clubs. The Sports Park are fully equipped for varieties of clubs and opportunities are just everywhere.

 I had dreamed to work for the United Nations when I firstly applied for UEA and the course, but now I got more interested in issues in Japan where I was born. I’ve got a graduate job in Japan so I’ll go home after graduation. After some experience, what I’m dreaming now is to set up a network of NGOs that covers whole country to make the biggest social impact, in the field of either education, job-seekers assistance or food bank. I might be just saying this, but we’ll see in 50 years’ time…!

Continue to the part 2!

Original texts in Japanese are here.