Before Leaving​
Studying abroad is a great experience and opportunity that more people should experience. It isn't the easiest process but for what you gain out of it, I say it is worth it.
Deciding why you want to go is the first steps. I say that because that will help decide what country and university you go to. I wanted to pick a university that I would be able to expand my professional network and resume with. Plus with my admirations of moving to Japan one day, that is why I decided to pick a top university in Tokyo, Japan.
Then after you decide why, and where, then the next step would be applying to MIX or Study abroad and looking for scholarships. There are quite some differences between MIX and Study abroad. The biggest differences to me that helped me decide which program was best for me was, what universities that had. They are completely different programs.
The second big difference was what kind of credits they were. Through Study Abroad, you will receive UH Manoa Credits, versus MIX (Manoa International Exchange) is the abroad University's credits. That means when you need transcripts, going through MIX might be a little more challenging getting those transcripts abroad.
Important Lesson Learned
This is a long but important lesson learned before I even started my time in Japan. If you hate reading the details, skip to the end and I will summarize the whole experience. But this experience should be learned from, and avoided at all cost in my opinion.
Before I left to study abroad, I was invited to join the University of Hawaii Shidler Alumni and Friends Mixer in Japan. This is a great opportunity to meet and network with Shidler Alumni. I wanted to hear about their stories, experiences, advice, and also explore if there are opportunities to line up an internship or even a job for the future. However, that event is with the University of Hawaii. The school I am studying abroad at doesn't know or aware of this event. So following the Japanese school's schedule and timeline of things, my visa wasn't ready.
According to them, my visa paperwork is going to be released late February but the event is on February 27th. So my plan was to go to Japan on a tourist visa(Limit of 90 days allowed in the country), then switch to a student visa(as long as the contract is between the school you are studying at, approves of). By the rules and laws, you are supposed to enter Japan with your Visa already issued.
I tried to get an answer but this is a very unique situation. I couldn't get a straight answer besides that I would be taking a risk and might have to book another trip to just come home, change/get my student visa, and then return back to Japan. I decided to try and hopefully explain my situation to the consulate/immigration in Japan. I thought the worst would be coming back home and then having to pay for another round trip.
So constantly talking with the school that I will be studying at to make sure that I had all my documents and things I needed to switch my visas once I got there. I continued to double check and seek advice. I am lucky to have studied abroad before and reached out to individuals that are familiar with the law, rules, and visa process. They said they don't advise it and said it is a very slim chance that I would get to do what I wanted to.
I asked the school regarding my paperwork for my visa. This paperwork is the most important and needed to get the student visa. I thought they said I could go to the physical school in Japan and pick it up, then go to the immigration office in Japan. However, they already sent it to Hawaii. These are official documents that can't be duplicated, so that meant I had to wait for the shipped paperwork to arrive. I thought I would wait, then just bring it to Japan.
I talked to the study abroad office at Kapiolani Community College (where my program and previous study abroad program was hosted and with). Long story short, I talked to Kobuke Sensei that has been very influential to my Japanese endeavors. She really provides advice and always points me in the right direction. With her advice, I went to see if my paperwork had arrived, then went to the consulate. This time, the lady that worked in the consulate advised me to change my plans. In Japan culture, they won't tell you that you are dumb or wrong. But she like Kobuke sensei HIGHLY advised me to not go along with my plan.
The consulate worker explained that if I went with my plan of trying to switch my visa in Japan, there would be a few scenarios. One of them being that I might not be able to board the plane in the first place. It is the companies responsibility to check the flights/tickets and rules. With that, they would be responsible for bringing someone back if they couldn't get through immigration. Second would be that I get to Japan, and I would be forced to get my student visa back in America. Another way that could have gone is that I would be DEPORTED. As someone that loves Japan, plans on returning to Japan and aspirations of moving to Japan one day, that was a huge eye-opener. I believe that I would be able to still enter the country of Japan after getting deported, but I am not 100% sure. The best situation after being deported would be that I would have a red flag on my account, and every time I go to Japan, I would have to explain why I got deported and explain the whole story/situation every time.
So with that said, I bite the bullet and changed my flights and plans. I decided to spend the money and playing it says was a way better decision than risking it and taking a chance of getting deported. End of the day, double check the rules, play it safe, don't try to bend the rules or get around the rules, and always double and triple check things.