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Ritsumeikan University International Faculty and Department Campus Tour


April 29th (Public holiday). Although it's a holiday, Today is a special day for Ritsumeikan University, as it's a school day. Organized by the IB program, a total of 21 students and 11 parents participated in classroom observations of three international faculties and departments at Ritsumeikan University's campuses in Kyoto's Kinugasa and Osaka's Ibaraki. At the Kinugasa Campus in Kyoto, we observed a class from the "American University-Ritsumeikan University International Collaboration Department (JDP)" within the International Relations Faculty. This department offers the only Joint Degree Program (JDP) in Japan, where students study for two years each at American University's campus in Washington D.C. and Ritsumeikan's campus in Kyoto. JDP is a highly structured special program where two universities from different countries (Japan and the U.S.) jointly offer a curriculum and award degrees. We observed a class where third-year students starting their studies at American University and second-year students starting their studies at Ritsumeikan University attended together. Graduates of the IB program, who are planning to study in the U.S. this summer, were also present and provided detailed explanations of the JDP program to their classmates.

At the Ibaraki Campus in Osaka, we visited the Global Liberal Arts (GLA) and Information Science and Engineering (ISSE) courses.

 The Global Liberal Arts (GLA) program is a Dual Degree Program (DUDP) where students can obtain degrees from both Ritsumeikan University and the Australian National University (ANU) by studying abroad at ANU for one year. It features a combination of "lecture-style" classes emphasizing communication with foreign faculty and small group discussions and group work in "tutorial-style" classes, allowing students to plan their studies according to their interests, which aligns well with the IB curriculum. During the visit, we observed classes in "Neuroscience" and "Economics," toured the international residence hall (OIC Global House), held an exchange event with senior students from Uji and ANU, and hosted an information session by the dean. The session ended with a lively Q&A session similar to a classroom, where the dean of the faculty answered questions from students, who expressed their appreciation for the merits and attractions of studying in the GLA program.

The Faculty of Information Science and Engineering at Ritsumeikan University is the largest information-related faculty in Japan and offers the Information Systems Science and Engineering Course (ISSE), where both international and Japanese students study information engineering in a project-based manner in English. We visited the newly relocated campus from Shiga Prefecture to Osaka in April and learned that students can learn high-level information engineering domestically without going abroad, including lectures from professors.
Experiencing the daily campus life was a valuable experience for students and parents. We were also impressed by the high level and breadth of internationalization at Ritsumeikan University. We express our gratitude to all university staff for their support.


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