Fukuoka University is the largest university in western Japan, with over 20,000 students. We have exchanges and programmes with a number of universities, including Leeds University and Bath University in the UK, the University of Calgary in Canada, the University of Hawai’i in the USA, and Griffith University in Australia.

Graduation 2011

The English Department

We have a large and friendly department, including six native-English speakers from Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia. In linguistics, the study of language, we have specialists in areas ranging from English phonology, semantics and grammar to the history of English, how children learn language, English education and more. In literature and culture, you can study the literature and cultures of the English-speaking countries. Professors in our department graduated from or were visiting researchers at some of the leading universities in the world. If you want to read more about our teachers, visit the English Department web pages.

In your third year, you will choose a seminar and, at the end of two years’ study, you can write a graduation thesis. The two-year seminar system enables you to study a topic in depth, with a small group of students and a close relationship with your tutor. A seminar is a chance to deepen your knowledge on a topic you are interested in, to learn how to research a project, evaluate evidence and make a presentation, to discuss and work with others, and to complete a task to a deadline and independently. All these skills will be very useful in your future careers, and they are skills that employers value highly.

We usually have a seminar dinner each term, and take a seminar trip. Recently, my classes went to Osaka and Seoul.

 

Graduation 2014

Working after university

My seminar students have gone on to teach English at high school, to study linguistics at MA and PhD level at graduate school, to be airline cabin crew, including Japan Airlines and ANA, to the Japanese Police Force, the civil service, and to major Japanese companies such as Rakuten, Saishunkan and the Bank of Japan.