Student Newsletter -October- By Yen Lin Wu, School of Engineering

Greetings to everyone! Autumn has come and maple leaves begin to put on their dresses of red and gold. I am Yen Lin from Taiwan, a second year from Mechanical Engineering.

It is my first time for me to live alone in a foreign country without the ability to speak its language. Luckily with some knowledge of Kanji and the Japanese courses for beginners at school, I was able to survive and have a satisfactory life here in Nagoya. Unlike most of my friends here in G30 who had been studying in international school for years, I hardly tried using English that often in daily life when in Taiwan, which in the very beginning of the first semester posed a great challenge for me to catch up with what my lecturers were talking about. But thanks to the supportive classmates here, I was able to follow up the lecture pace.

In my first semester, we had a specialized course called Introduction of Automotive Engineering. Although that lecture takes place at tiring 5^th and 6^th period (16:30-19:30) on Monday, it was worthwhile for us to meet with different lecturers from different backgrounds. At the very last two lessons, we were asked to team up and disassemble then assemble a 1.5L DOHC VVT-I engine together, which is the most unforgettable part in the first year to me.

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As a Chinese saying goes, “The dog equally study, the gentleman equally plays.” As for students in the school of Engineering and Science, we really have tough work and a pile of assignments every week. I always spend my weekends at home to integrate what I learnt from the previous week. And of course I plan on trips myself during vacation. For example I went skiing at Takayama last winter break and travelled to Osaka during the last spring vacation. Rewarding myself with a trip always restore my energy for the upcoming semester.

There is indeed much to explore here, either from life or studies. No matter what our future plans are, no matter if we shall still be in Japan after graduation, we should make the best use of the opportunities now to enjoy our lives in Japan. So please make every experience an unforgettable one, and take care!