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Very confused about what I should do at the moment.

physiognomy

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26 Jun 2014
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Alright, for years I've been reading people's questions and trying to find my own answers about how I could possibly manage to go to Japan.

At this point, I'm stumped. I don't know where I should be looking or who I should be speaking to first.

If anyone's honestly willing to help me out here there's nothing I would appreciate more. I'd like some explanations, any resources, hell any sort of help by now would be great.

I'm 19 years old. I dropped out of High School in 2012.
My family and I are from Cuba. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, and coming to the US when I was 13 years old was a bit rough on me. I focused on learning English, and by now I've got no issues with it, I hope, but I fell behind on classes and it became frustrating, grades dropped, I was a junior and I couldn't bring up my GPA, all I got was people angry at me and telling me I should be doing better while I hadn't had a single clue what I was studying by the time I was sinking that low.
Moving around so many different countries had my head all scrambled up, and at the time the only option I saw was to cut ties with school and get my GED. It was a bit complicated at first, since I wasn't 18 yet, but it got done, and I've had my GED since.

Now I've always been fascinated with many countries and languages, I've been to many places, seen many things, but we never went to Asia. I liked Japan.
I don't want to romanticize the place or make it sound like it's been my destiny to go there my entire life. I simply want to go and have the experience. Maybe stay if I like it and it's an option.

Now I'm at a point in my life in which I feel a lot less overwhelmed by the thought of school, and I've been looking to enroll in some form of college.
So far I haven't had much luck, all due to financial issues, and the fact that I never had anyone really sit me down and explain the whole thing to me. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be going for, how you should apply, what I should be asking for if my goal is to study in Japan.

I won't lie, what I want is to go study in Japan. But so far the only options I've been made aware of are Studying abroad (After enrolling in a school here in America) or going to a language school.

I'm concerned about money. I'm working useless, retail jobs, and my parents can't do much for me at the moment. Their credit isn't very good and I know it's really no one's fault that they've gotten into so many financial issues.
I haven't had any form of credit my whole life so I don't think I can do much on my part.

I've even looked into the FAFSA but my parents can't provide information for it at the moment, seeing as they haven't filed for taxes in a while and don't plan to do so yet since they got something that allows them to take more time with it (ah, sorry I don't know much about this!).

So I really am stumped. I don't know if I should simply give up on the idea because the circumstances just aren't good. But I don't want to, and I don't think I should. I don't want to stay in my current situation and I don't want to give up on one of the things I've wanted to do for such a long time.

Does anyone have any words for me, anything that will at least nudge me in the right direction?
I really feel like I need someone to tell me whether I have realistic expectations or I should focus on something else.



Thank you if you've bothered to read any of this, and thank you if you reply. I really appreciate your time.
 
You should really visit/call the Japanese embassy or consulate in your city. They can really help you out.

But until then,
I would suggest looking at the MEXT scholarships.
The Japanese government provides these scholarships (They pay the tuition fees and give you an allowance).
After you go to Japan there's a year of prep school where they teach Japanese among other subjects and then you go to college.

But these scholarships are extremely competitive. You need to make it past the document screening before they let you take the exam and then you have to get past the interview round.
The document screening requires past 3 year transcripts so that may be a bit of a problem.
But it wouldn't hurt to apply right ?
Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) Scholarship Students


You can also give the EJU exam which is for direct admission to colleges. But this is without a scholarship and you need to know Japanese.
EJU-JASSO

Some Japanese Universities have a G30 program where they have courses in English. But they are limited in their field and they may not have the field you want. Some universities accept standardized test scores so maybe you can give it a try.
Study in Japan(Japanese university) | Global30

For the EJU and G30 programs, it is possible to get scholarships after you have started the course but there's no guarantee you may get it.

Hope this helps you out ^^
 
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