The Voice of a Japanese student: MSc Development Economics 1

Hi guys! This is Yoko, doing The Japanese Ambassador and I would like to introduce my friend who studies at PGT at UEA. 

Hello, everyone! I am a current student, studying MSc in Development Economics at UEA.

I've been interested in International Development since I was young. I graduated from Department of International economics, Faculty of economics at a Japanese university and then I worked at a private financial institution. Now I have studied Development Economics in order to learn how to make use of my knowledge about development and working experience in this field.

The reason why I chosen UEA is, to be honest, that I failed another university that there is Development Finance major which I really wanted to enrol at that time. However, Now I think sincerely, I am grad that I had chosen UEA. There are mainly three reasons as follows.

At first, there are a lot of wonderful professors and classes. Of course, they have a class focusing on development finance, which I've been thinking about study as my core, but there are more choices to learn many things such as economics, impact evaluation, agriculture, health, water and sanitation, education, gender, conflict, etc. We can learn a wide range of matters related to International Development with professional lecturers in the fields.

Secondary, we can receive generous supports for international students from the university, like optional classes which are about learning the Western way of study, improving English classes and more.  

Thirdly, at last, it is also attractive that there are substantial extracurricular activities such as over 200 societies and over 60 clubs, and great facilities such as Sport Park. It is wonderful opportunities to meet a lot of people from other countries and to experience cultural differences. I have belonged to one of sports clubs and actively participated in events organised by Student Union. This helps to practice English too.

Earlier, I was thinking to work at international institutions like Word Bank. However, now my interest is to contribute to my country, Japan, while solving global issues from financial perspectives.

This is due to thinking about my work experience in Japan and a result from experiences at UEA which opened up my mind to re-think about what is happening in my country from the perspective of the outsider.

This time my friend want to use initials for her privacy and security reasons.