I've been thinking about getting my Master's and, at the same time, I've always wanted to live abroad for awhile (specifically in Japan). So, I put 2 and 2 together and got "Why not get my Master's in Japan!" Now I'm looking for a little information about starting this adventure.
Some background on me: I live in the United States and work at a software company. I graduated with my BS in Computer Science 4 years ago. As for Japanese, I know like 200 kanji as well as basic grammar and phrases. Definitely no where near passing the upper levels of JLPT. All of my Japanese learning so far has been self-study.
From what I've read around the internet, it sounds like a good course of action might be to enroll in a Japanese language school for a year or so. Then it would be easier to get into a Master's program. This is where I'm looking for advice from you all =) It might also be helpful to note that learning Japanese is definitely a prioty for me (in addition to getting the Master's). The thought was: spend 3-4 years in Japan and end with my degree and a high level of Japanese fluency ("high" can be debatable =P).
Additionally, I'm interested in how to go about funding this whole venture. I've been out of school and working, so I have a decent savings, but definitely nowhere near enough to pay for all of this. It sounds like after three months (confirm?) I can start working part-time on a student visa. If so, that would definitely help with the day-to-day expenses, but what about tuition? For my undergraduate degree I had deferrable student loans, is something like that even possible?
Even if you can't answer all my questions, any help at all would be much appreciated =) Thanks in advance!
Some background on me: I live in the United States and work at a software company. I graduated with my BS in Computer Science 4 years ago. As for Japanese, I know like 200 kanji as well as basic grammar and phrases. Definitely no where near passing the upper levels of JLPT. All of my Japanese learning so far has been self-study.
From what I've read around the internet, it sounds like a good course of action might be to enroll in a Japanese language school for a year or so. Then it would be easier to get into a Master's program. This is where I'm looking for advice from you all =) It might also be helpful to note that learning Japanese is definitely a prioty for me (in addition to getting the Master's). The thought was: spend 3-4 years in Japan and end with my degree and a high level of Japanese fluency ("high" can be debatable =P).
Additionally, I'm interested in how to go about funding this whole venture. I've been out of school and working, so I have a decent savings, but definitely nowhere near enough to pay for all of this. It sounds like after three months (confirm?) I can start working part-time on a student visa. If so, that would definitely help with the day-to-day expenses, but what about tuition? For my undergraduate degree I had deferrable student loans, is something like that even possible?
Even if you can't answer all my questions, any help at all would be much appreciated =) Thanks in advance!