Japan Revisited
By Susan Carl

The Undergraduate Business program is keenly interested in creating unique and positive experiences for our students. Lectures, labs, texts books, and field trips are all good, but we believe giving students an opportunity to observe and use learned business concepts in an exciting environment is an added, vital component to the learning experience. To that end, our department organized a trip to Osaka, Japan, where five students saw first-hand the similarities and differences between the American and Japanese ways of doing business. But the story doesn’t end there! Benefits exceeded the business experience!

First, a little history: Roberts Wesleyan College and Osaka Christian College have been “sister colleges” for over 20 years. Early in the relationship there was frequent contact and several visits in both directions. After some years in which there were no visits, the two institutions again rekindled the relationship when our own President Martin visited OCC. Later, in September 2005, 32 OCC students and faculty visited Roberts. Our department was eager to take students on a return visit, which we did in May/June 2006, led by four RWC faculty and staff members.

So what were the added benefits? Let me set the stage. Imagine, after a grueling 13 hour flight, you step off the plane into a place where you can’t communicate in any way except hand gestures. You don’t know anyone. You can’t read Kanji, so you don’t know what train to take or when to get off once you’re on. You know if you get lost, you won’t be able to tell anyone what street you’re on. If a menu doesn’t have pictures, you have no idea what to order. I think you get the picture. In addition to the business aspects of the trip were stepping outside one’s comfort zone, horizon-broadening, and depending on perfect strangers to help one navigate all aspects of a foreign visit. It was a venture requiring an extra degree of courage. Of course our situation was not dire. While it was a stretching experience, we had our OCC hosts to help us. And we weren’t facing these challenges with complete anxiety, but mixed with a lot of excitement, as well.

Another important benefit were the relationships we made. Generally speaking, unless we choose to step outside our known world, we won’t truly experience other options. It’s conceivable, though less so in today’s world, that someone could grow up and live in the same area, or at least state and certainly country, all their lives, experiencing the world as a whole through the news media. The Undergraduate Business faculty and staff want something better for our students. We want them to experience the greater world…and on a personal level, not just business. While there, we met again some of the OCC students who had come to Roberts in 2005. We purposely asked for OCC students to accompany us on all our outings, something that had not been done before and which was very well received by them. And for part of our visit, we stayed in their homes. This past September, OCC students again visited Roberts. Those of us who had gone to Japan in May were excited to see again friends we’d met while there. We also continue to correspond through email and internet networking sites.

For those of us who went to Japan, our understanding of business in the global community was broadened and our lives were personally enriched through the personal connections we made. This is the experience our department wants as many of our students as possible to have while here with us at Roberts.

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