Portland, Oregon was awesome! I had a wonderful time at the Portland trip. I visited many places and I saw a lot of interesting things. I can’t choose what the best memory is for me but I was especially impressed by the university and colleges. I visited three wonderful university and colleges such as Columbia Basin College (CBC), Reed College and Portland State University (PSU) during this trip. I was very impressed by each school’s amazing characteristics.First, I visited CBC in Pasco, Washington to talk with students. There were more students who take Japanese class than I expected. The Japanese class’s teacher was so unique and students really like her. This college was not so huge but there were high school students who participate in the Running Start program. I was surprised that there were also many high school students in Japanese class. Japan doesn’t have the Running Start program system, so I was really curious about this system. In this college, I could learn one common aspect of the American education system.
Second, I visited Reed College in Portland, Oregon. This college looks like Harvard University. This school was not so huge and there were just 1,400 students. Each class has around 10 students, so it is easy to communicate between teacher and student. This college focuses only on learning, so students work very hard. However, students really enjoy their studies and this college because this college has a lot of surprising systems. One of them was an Honor system. It means teachers trust students and students have responsibility by themselves. For example, Reed College students can take test s whenever they want to take and teachers don’t give grades to students at all. Student can get many comments from teachers instead of grades. At first, I couldn’t believe that. In Japan, there are absolutely nothing like the Honor system. This college really fascinated me because this college is really good for students. If I were smart, I would go to this college.
Third, I visited one more amazing University. It was Portland State University. This university was so huge and there were a lot of students. Moreover, this university is located downtown. I was really surprised by the number of International students. There were 1, 700 International students. This University also had an unique system. I was most surprised by their electronic system. This university was very active to save energy, so there were some unique systems to save energy. For example, running machine to exercise in the gym contributes making electricity. When students run on the running machine, this running energy changes into electricity for this university. To exercise in this university’s gym is not common for Japanese university students. It was a big different from American students and Japanese Students.
CBC, Reed College and PSU were really interesting. Through these schools, I learned American student life and many differences compared to Japanese universities. After visiting American school s, I always consider that Japanese university students should study more and I also realize how I didn’t study hard in Japan. All students are busy because of part- time jobs or outings. However, students shouldn’t forget the reason why they are studying in university or college. To study hard is a student’s work for, so let’s study hard!!