When do your school begin? In Japan it’s on April and ends on March. We usually have summer vacation from the end of July to beginning of September and winter vacation from the end of December to beginning of January. You may have an entrance exam when you go to private schools and colleges. We do too. Mostly the exam holds between January and March. Job hunting is also set in the same duration.
Recently many Japanese students have tried to go to study abroad. The destinations are mainly US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Schools in some countries begin on January or September, and I think this is majority. I felt strange when I joined in foreign school programs, because I always saw cherry blossom when my school began. This is one of aspects.
The most remarkable point is the way of our selection of major. Normally a person, who wanna be a Japanese-language teacher, goes to department of Japanese. If you wanna deal with marketing field, then you probably go to department of marketing. However Japanese system is totally different from this. We focus on a value of university, because it directly connect to the employment rate. It doesn’t matter what you study.
Indeed, I studied political science and now work on Internet business. This is funny, isn’t this? A friend of mine in US asked me, “Why did you study political science? It doesn’t relate to your business.” Correct! She was right! This has been Japanese education since the World War II ended.
This system is changing little by little. Some people consider the relation between study and work especially among young age. It is little bit late, but now we should realize an importance of career for the global competition.
Posted by Glnovis 
