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Being able to choose the classes I take based on my interests has boosted my motivation to study!

It's fun to create your own schedule, and it's interesting to compare it with others' schedules, as they differ even within the same department and year.

In the spring semester of my first year, required courses alone could fill up to 20 credits, so I made sure not to take any other classes. Also, there were several on-demand courses in the spring semester, and if I wasn't careful, I could miss the deadlines for lecture videos and quizzes, so I struggled to create a schedule and routine of which classes to watch on which days. The class I was glad I took was Spanish, which was a small class and made it easy to make friends. During my free periods, I spent time with friends in the lounge of Building 3 on Waseda Campus, working on assignments or chatting.

The most important thing when registering for courses is to choose courses that align with your interests. When registration time comes, rumors of "easy courses" (courses where you can easily get credits) spread all over campus, but in the end, the courses that I found enjoyable and whose content I found satisfying were the easiest to get credits in. I read the syllabus carefully, checking the course content and whether the evaluation criteria were exams or reports before registering for courses. Also, taking the course "Changes in the External Environment and Corporate Dynamics," offered by School of Education, and hearing from top executives of major companies such as Tokyu Corporation was very refreshing!

A distinctive feature of this program is the four weekly introductory foreign language classes where you can choose the language you want to learn. The pace of the classes is fast, and the content becomes increasingly advanced, so it's important to review regularly! When registering for courses, I made sure to choose a balance so that the grading method wasn't solely based on exams or reports. Also, since I wanted to advance to the Theater and Film course in my second year, I took film classes. The class I enjoyed the most was "Children's Culture Studies." I was able to relate it to my own childhood experiences, and it left a lasting impression on me.

Since I'm taking teacher training courses, I first incorporated required subjects and subjects necessary for teaching. When registering for courses, I made sure to minimize the number of free periods and to check the evaluation methods for each class. After actually taking the classes, I realized that it was difficult to maintain motivation for subjects I wasn't interested in, so I felt that I shouldn't choose them lightly even if they're said to be "easy credits." One class I was glad I took was "Gender Studies (Using Everyday Things as a Perspective)," where I learned about the relationship between everyday life and gender through group work, and I think it broadened my perspective on things.

In my first year, I had required courses that filled my schedule from Monday to Saturday. Many seminars require students to have taken elective courses as a condition for joining, so if you've decided which seminar field you want to join or what you want to study in your faculty, taking these courses in your first year is a good idea because it allows you to learn the basics early on without feeling rushed in your second year. In my free time, I participated in student club activities at Waseda University Student Center on Toyama Campus.

As a first-year student, I had many required courses, including year-long courses, making it difficult to retake them in my second year and beyond. Therefore, I tried to choose courses that wouldn't overwhelm me. The classes were mainly mathematics and more difficult than in high school, so if I stumbled even once, it was hard to catch up. As a result, I regret not consulting with teachers and friends earlier when I didn't understand something. One interesting class was "Outlook on Mathematical Sciences." I was able to learn about the research outlines of professors from the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Applied Mathematics in an easy-to-understand way for first-year undergraduate students, which was a good opportunity to get an idea of what to expect in my future studies. Also, the Basic Science and Engineering Experiments were very challenging until I got used to them, as some experiments had many assignments and the class time was long. On the other hand, since we worked in different pairs for each experiment, it was also a good opportunity to broaden my social circle.

In the spring semester of my first year, there were many required courses, so I chose to take two other courses that I was interested in: "Human Geography" and "Introduction to Marketing." I think prioritizing courses that interested me helped me maintain my motivation to attend university. On the other hand, because the university is far from my home, having days with only one class made commuting very burdensome and inefficient. When creating my timetable, I realized I should have grouped more classes together each day, and I'm being more careful about that in the next semester.

In addition to required courses, I took the maximum number of credits, focusing on classes to obtain the Class 1 Health and Safety Manager (national qualification) and Social Researcher qualifications. On Mondays and Thursdays, after attending classes at Tokorozawa Campus during the second period, I moved to Toyama Campus and worked as a student staff member at Student Affairs Section. My recommended class is "Leadership Development," a course offered by the Global Education Center (GEC) that students from any faculty can take. It was such a wonderful class that I'm involved in its operation in the 2026 academic year! If you become a Waseda student, it would be a real shame not to take this class! With the motto "Creating learning together," you can learn about leadership that everyone can utilize in a fun and serious way. You're sure to meet lifelong friends.

To meet the required number of credits for graduation specified for each subject group, I roughly calculated how many credits I needed to take in each subject per year and registered for courses accordingly. I ended up with a lot more free time between classes, but I was able to use that time to work on assignments with friends or have an early lunch at the school cafeteria, which was great! Volleyball in "Sports Method Practice" was a great opportunity to make many new friends. Also, "Advertising Theory" was very interesting because I gained new insights by analyzing advertisements that I usually see without thinking about them.

School of International Liberal Studies has very few required courses, only one credit per course, so I planned my course load to be manageable over four years, taking into account my study abroad period. Specifically, I registered for many elective courses, such as the "First Year Seminar," to earn credits early. However, I ended up taking courses with content and evaluation criteria different from what I had anticipated, and I regret not having read the syllabus more carefully when registering for courses. In the "Political and Economic Situations in Southern African Countries" course, diplomats and consulate officials from Southern African countries visited the university, allowing me to gain a deeper understanding of those countries. This was particularly interesting to me because I aspire to work in international organizations or similar organizations in the future, supporting developing countries.