Tan
School of International Liberal Studies
ICC Student Staff Leader
June 2022 – January 2025
Prologue
It all began with my surprising discovery of ICC, a place that holds a variety of events to encourage communication between the International and Japanese students. Since I am a foreign student coming to Japan from high school, the linguistic, cultural and social challenges inspired me to create events that facilitate foreign students’ engagements and interactions with local students during their study abroad life. Therefore, ICC was the perfect, the one and only place for me to achieve this. Luckily, I was able to join and my lovely journey, filled with ups and downs, started.
The Ups
The gains, the achievements and the joyfulness, are the “Ups” that I ‘ve been through during the work at the ICC. All of these have motivated me to put effort and discover my potential.
Colleagues with love
Undoubtedly, it is always appreciated to work with so many intelligent, creative and supportive student staff and full time staff! The business skills, the communication ways and the spirit, I have learned so much from ICC members. We are not just colleagues, but we also get along with each other. I am so glad to have got to know people at ICC that I believe will be my lifelong friends.
One impressive scene was that, when I go to work on the day that also happens to be my birthday, I received lots of wishes and sweet presents from ICC members each time. I was so moved and felt the warmness sincerely. At ICC, you always feel the sense of welcome and inclusiveness like a family.
photos by author
Events with passion
One event that I was engaged in from the beginning to the end of my ICC work was the “Japanese Chat Club”. It was so meaningful to me as I have utilized my own experience of learning Japanese and created interesting activities to encourage Japanese learning of foreign students. For example, I proposed the “Shiritori” game, which is an activity that requires participants to say a word that begins with the final kana sound of the previous word. It played the “ice break” role and the purpose was to let participants learn practical Japanese in a fun way. When seeing participants laugh and enjoy a lot during the activities, I felt very satisfied and encouraged.
The events which gave me the most sense of achievement, must be my individual proposal events. Overall, I planned and held three individual events. First, it was the Chinese Paper-Cutting event, where participants experienced Chinese culture through a traditional art craft. Unexpectedly, the event was also included in a documentary about Chinese intangible cultural heritage.
photo by author
The second individual event was the Movie Talk Night. Since I am quite interested in movies and I found it to be an easy common topic to start a conversation, I was pleased to see people who love movie gather together and discuss the cultural differences of remake movies at the event.
photo by author
My last individual event was Talk with UNIQLO: the Power of Clothing. The theme was how clothes can contribute to the society with the examples of UNIQLO’s contributions. The thing that touched me the most, definitely, were the brilliant and creative ideas of participants for solving SDGs issues through clothing, which make me feel the meaningfulness and pride of holding this event.
photo by author
Acting with confidence
Being a student staff, it was not only about planning and hosting events, but also interacting with the guests, doing guidance presentations and MC of events that included public speaking and memorizing of scripts.
Certainly, all of these have improved my public speaking skills to a large degree and, more importantly, the confidence that I gained through practicing and performing. To be honest, I was not that confident from the beginning. For example, I was worried about saying the scripts wrong or forgetting what to say. However, the opportunities to present that I was given at ICC made me get confident and able to overcome the nervousness. I believe it will become a strong weapon in my future work.
photo by author
The Downs
I summarize the challenges, struggles and hard times as “downs” in the ICC work. Just like a coin has two sides, the tough tasks are unavoidable. However, there is no doubt that those challenges that have led to my growth.
On entering ICC, everything was my “first time”. ICC was also like an internship, where I need to practice fundamental business skills, such as writing formal emails in Japanese. Also, there were some difficulties, like when an event proposal is not implementable and I have to change it again and again. Everything looked hard to me for the first time, however, the full-time staff and other ICC members were always there to help me. Even when I made a mistake, they give generous talking and kind teaching. Therefore, thanks to this, I was encouraged to try and ask more.
The most vital thing that I have learnt from dealing with the challenges is courage. On facing challenges, I used to try to run away or just quit, however, through my experiences working at ICC, I have become more courageous and no matter how hard the task seems, I will try first and face it directly. It is most precious thing that I gained from ICC and I will keep this in mind all the time.
The end
My ICC journey was full of ups and downs, but it is definitely the most cherished and precious experience in my university life. I am truly thankful to all ICC members.
Wish you all the best!
