From India to Japan

Last year, when I was a freshman at Akita International University, I was taking a course called Career design, well of course it was mandatory. It was just my starting journey in Japan, with full of dreams about starting my life here. For someone who grew up in a small town in Northern India, where you could commute everywhere just by work, a place like Japan where you had to use the subway to get anywhere was like time-traveling myself to the future, just like in the movie.

However, I was confronted by harsh-reality when I took this career course. I found out it was hard for someone like me, who cannot read and write Japanese fluently enough to get a job in Japan or even in foreign countries because I hold Japanese citizenship.

My dream until then was just to get into the Japanese university. So, I didn’t have anything planned ahead. But everyone around me, at least those people in the career design course, had ambition and some idea of what they want to do in the future. I felt pressured.

Wantedly?

One day, as a guest speaker, there came a young woman, wearing a casual white t-shirt and jeans. And she mentioned herself as the CEO of a start-up company of ‘Wantedly’. No wonder she had a different vibe than any other person in the whole room, from the way she carried herself, and the way she talked, everything seemed cool. Most importantly, her journey. During that time, I heard about ‘Wantedly’ for the first time. It is a software application, that helps young graduates to get access to companies in Japan, much easier than how they would normally apply to companies. I signed up for it right away, after the session finished thinking this might help me.

And it did, during this pandemic when many thought 2020 is the worst year they can ever experience. Luckily, all my classes at university became online, and so I could sit at home and take class, and do not miss my lunch. Luckily, (for the second time), I got an excuse to stay in Tokyo, the place where I dreamt of staying because my university is in a Tohoku region, where all you can enjoy is the greeneries but you always find yourself back to your room at 8:30 pm because all shops close at 8 pm. Anyway, this pandemic brought me good luck and a good reason to start something different, that I never thought I will be able to do a few months back. I decided to an internship, in Tokyo.

The only advice I got from my sister, from Tokyo University, was to do an internship while I am an undergraduate student. She taught me this would really help me grow mentally and gain important experience in getting adapt to the Japanese working environment. Using Wantedly, I saw many posts about internships. And thankfully, there were many opportunities, even for someone like me who cannot read and write Japanese, all you need was a good level of English and a conversational level of Japanese. Interestingly, I found this company called ‘SPeak’, promoting their main project called JPort, in which they help out students to get prepared for working in Japan, especially for those international students. Their service was what I actually needed, and while scrolling through their journals called ‘Senpai Tips’, there were stories of international students who are currently working in Japan, gave me the hope that I also have a chance to work in Japan and it really inspired me. Therefore, I thought it would be great if I could actually do an internship for this company and help out other students like me to get a job in Japan that they dream of. Overall, this fulfilled two goals. First, to do an internship and get experience working in companies and second, being the help for other international students or even to other Japanese students like me, having a problem getting jobs in Japan.

Actual 2-day intern!

Luckily (now for the third time), I got an opportunity to do 2 days trial for this internship. I was nervous at first, I still am, as my very first experience to do an internship. But the environment was relaxing and comforting. Also, the people around me. Everyone was frank, and seemed very nice, that they helped me every time I needed help. I was assigned several tasks, on writing articles, collecting sign-up members, promoting some new ideas for company webinars, making a banner, interviewing international student is working in Japan, listing up 3 companies that we might need to know, and finally, a presentation on what I did for 2 days. Everything was challenging tasks, especially when it comes to reaching out to people because I do not have a diverse circle of acquaintances. But at the same time, it would not be interesting if it is not challenging.

With the given time limit of two days, it was about how much I can do and put my extra effort into. For collecting sign-up members, I made three advertisements on social media and reached out to my international friends. Actually, ‘working’ didn’t finish even after I left the office. I was only thinking about what new ideas, I can actually provide to this company, to make it better. And fortunately, I managed to contact one of my senpais from our university to do an interview. I barely knew her but she was kind enough to answer my questions despite being late at night. While listening to her stories about her working experiences in Japan, there were so many things I can learn from and I thought I should share these with other international students as well. And this is what this company is always getting to do: giving an inspiration. Moving on to other tasks given, listing up three companies seemed very easy at first but it was probably the most difficult task for me. It was really time-consuming. But I realized that after we research these companies and are able to share only the necessary information with other students, we are actually saving a lot of their time.

2nd day

For the second day, I continued finishing up my tasks. I came across an issue that I needed approval from the company where that senpai is working, in order to be able to put up her journal. This might be one of the fundamental things needed to be done while working in any sort of companies, but I was made to realize that I was not just randomly assigned a project like the one you do in your school but an actual work that would go into the hand of thousands of people out there. This gave me a feeling of responsibility.

Finally, coming up with new ideas was difficult, but the fun part. I was able to imagine myself in the shoe of international students and think about what better events or approaches can be there to attract more students like us. This challenged me about thinking from different perspectives and gave me a deeper understanding of what user-friendly actually meant.

What I learned

It was just for two days but it taught me a lot. The need to have a responsibility in whatever we do, giving importance to details, the importance of time management, need to have a broad and flexible mindset, how much I am capable of doing in a given time limit, the importance of questioning, speaking up, the importance of being in other person’s shoe, and the feeling of accomplishment and contributing to the society. I probably had my most meaningful 2 days!!

Updates

So my first day as an actual intern started! I was very nervous at first before coming to the office but guess what, at the end of the day, I was really enjoying it!! I met two other intern, who started on same day as me and also other intern who came to the office. They all had an international backgrounds just like me, so there were so many things I could relate with them, and so it was really comforting.

Regarding the tasks, there seems to be many things I still have to learn but nothing was too complicated. I enjoyed completing the given tasks. With this internship opportunity, I am given an opportunity to be a helping hand to other students who wish to work and contribute to Japanese society. And at the same time, I am also one of them, so I can learn a lot too. I am very thankful and lucky to be surrounded by all these motivated and proactive individuals. I am looking forward to work with all of them and excited to be part of new generation who will be changing this Japanese society into more global one !

PS. For lunch, our CEO treated us and we all had vietnamese food pho while having some girls talk. It was super delicious and fun. We also went out to buy some coffee later on to the cute cafe nearby :) I wished it wasn't online and so we can work together in office more often!