All posts by Daniel

Doshisha MBA, Education, Kyoto

What am I doing as an MBA student?

Up until now, I’ve mostly written about things that happened outside of Doshisha Business School. This time, I will focus on my school life here in Kyoto, Japan. So far, 2.5 months have passed and I’ve taken 7 courses simultaneously this first quarter (the maximum courseload that you could take), and was quite intense. My program consists of 32 international students from all over the world who have gathered at a building called Kambaikan at Doshisha’s Imadegawa Campus. Here, we spend most of our weekdays attending lectures, working on projects, and sitting in our exclusive business school lounge discussing life in Japan. On evenings and Saturdays, the Japanese MBA students (JMBA) come to the school to attend their lessons and study at the library. Every Saturday, a group of us meet for a language exchange and to share our experiences.

This quarter, I took courses in: Accounting, Business Economics, Operations Management, Strategic Management, and Critical and Analytical Thinking. Additionally, I took two optional courses: written and spoken Japanese, level IV.

The quarter started off nice and slow, but ended in utter mayhem. I overestimated my own abilities, and my 7-course workload in addition to doing other things really stressed me out. I simply had too many things going on at the same time – my MBA studies, kendo practice, interviews for my part-time job, meeting friends and making new ones, exploring Kyoto, etc. I made some strategic decisions and cut out Kendo club for now, as it conflicts with the schedule of my new job at IKEA. One Japanese course also had to go, since I felt that I would learn much more Japanese working at my job (more about that later).

The second quarter started on December 2014. Currently, I’m taking: Marketing, People and Organizations, Business and Society in the Global Context; and continuing with Critical and Analytical Thinking, as well as my Japanese speaking class. Having only five classes instead of seven is working wonders! I’ve also rearranged my priorities to:

  1. Getting an MBA degree
  2. Working at IKEA
  3. Meeting people and exploring

Mari Kondo, who teaches my Strategic Management class, asked us to come up with an idea for a business plan and to implement some of the strategic frameworks that we have learned. My team and I ended up making this silly, but awesome, video. Enjoy!!!

Kyoto, Temples and shrines, Travel

Hiking in Kurama and Nishiyama

A couple of friends and I have been doing some hikes these last couple of weeks and I want to share some experiences on that. We’ve been on two short hikes enjoying the autumn leaves of northern and western Kyoto.

Kurama hike

November 15th me and some friend went on a small hike to the Kurama temple. We took the eizan railway (叡山電鉄) for a 30 minutes ride, from demachiyanagi station all the way up to Kurama, which is a rural town in the northern mountains of Kyoto. There we took the cable car up to the summit where we found the magnificent Kurama temple (鞍馬寺). I later found out that Kurama also is known for its hot spring. The mountain was covered with beautiful autumn leaves (紅葉). We brought bentos with us and had it at the Kurama temple. I even had a caricature made of me by the talented, Naosuke-san. She runs a business called Atelier LH&(she is lefthanded). (Atelier LH&)

Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking kurama
Hiking Kurama

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Nishiyama hike

November 27th we went to Nishiyama which is located behind Arashiyama. We took the bus nr 62 that went all the way up to the beginning of the trail (Kiyotaki bus stop). The hike began by descending to a nearby bridge where we went down a few stairs and hiked along the river. This place had very few travelers and I will highly recommend it. Look up “Kyoto trail Nishiyama” for a detailed explanation of the course.

Hiking Nishiyama
Hiking Nishiyama
Hiking Nishiyama
Hiking Nishiyama
Hiking Nishiyama
Hiking Nishiyama

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Doshisha MBA, Education, Scholarships

Financing – Scholarships

Living abroad usually isn’t cheap. It can be difficult to go from receiving a fulltime salary to nothing if you aren’t prepared. An MBA degree isn’t for free (at least outside of Sweden). There are many expenses related to moving to Japan, and to make the ends meet, you need to find ways to finance that (whether through loans or working a part time job). In my case, I did it through three channels:

  • Savings
  • Student loans
  • Scholarships
Savings

I spent one year working and put almost 1/2 of my monthly salary into a seperate savings account for this purpose.

Student loans

As a Swedish citizen, I received a student loan from the government at a reasonable interest rate. This loan covers the majority of my current tuition fees and my living expenses.

Scholarships

This is where it gets interesting. Scholarships are a type of aid that is merit or need based. There are many scholarships out there, but they are quite competitive in their selection process. They usually have specific critieria. I’ll briefly go through the scholarhips that I’ve been awarded:

  • Sweden Japan Foundation. Back in Sweden I attended a scholarship ceremony by the Sweden-Japan Foundation and received some money to finance my expenses in Japan. I got to meet Bo Dankins, the chairman of Business Sweden and Princess Christina. The event was followed by a dinner and “after work” networking.
  • Doshisha University. 50 % Reduced-Tuition Scholarship. Doshisha reduced my tuition fee by 50% early on!
  • JASSO scholarship for graduate students. A few weeks ago I got news that I also received this scholarship for 6 months!
  • Doshisha University Graduate School Scholarship Award for 2014. And a few days ago, another scholarship fell in through the mailbox: the remaining 50% of the tuition fee is now covered as well!

Thus, with advanced planning and good luck, I was able to fund my life in Japan so far! And maybe you can do it too!

Her Excellency Princess Christina, Mrs Magnusson
Bo Dankis – Chairman of Business Sweden
Group picture
Seiji Morimoto – Japans ambassador to Sweden
All the scholarship recipients
After scholarship ceremony

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IKEA, Work

Finding a job in Japan – IKEA

These last couple of weeks, I’ve gone through a period of job interviews and waiting.

To start from the beginning. As some of you know, I’ve been working for IKEA in Sweden for a while. During that time, I found an interesting job recruitment ad (アルバイト募集) on the IKEA webpage. The only problem was,  it was all written in Japanese! So I printed it out and brought it home for translation. It said that IKEA Kobe is looking for part-time workers in all departments, and I thought that this would suit me perfectly during my time in Japan. As I had worked part-time for IKEA before during my studies in Sweden, why not try it in Japan?

IKEA Kobe

The process started in July this year. I wrote a draft for the cover letter and gave it to a Japanese friend living in Stockholm to doublecheck it. My friend also mentioned that I would need a Japanese style CV. But since I didn’t have time to translate it, I submitted my English one. After some time, I got an answer written in Japanese from the HR department of the IKEA Kobe store. They said they were interested in having me come over for an interview when I had settled down in Japan, which was almost 2 months later.

IKEA Kobe

Back to the present.

I got help from the career advisor at Doshisha University who helped me to write a Japanese CV and brush up the Cover letter before going. The first interview was a group interview about three weeks ago with me and about 8 other Japanese people. The interview was conducted at 100% in Japanese. It started with a short presentation of IKEA. The group was then asked questions and we were all supposed to answer according to our own thoughts and experiences. For me, this was very hard since they used 敬語(polite Japanese) and some technical words I’ve never heard of. But in the end, I think I made a good impression. A few days after the group interview, I got an mail calling me in for another interview. And a week later, I went back to Kobe and met two managers from different departments. It was more informal and we talked about my background, Japanese language proficiency, and what my future plans were. A few days ago, I got a mail saying the job was mine and that I’ll start my training on the 1st of December!

IKEA Kobe

IKEA is a great company and I have been thinking about continuing my career there, and working part-time for a store in Japan would greatly enhance this. My Japanese skills will also improve, and I’ll have a lot of fun and make new friends. And not to forget, I get a source of income again!

Temples and shrines, Travel

Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama

In this post, I’m going to write about two trips that I’ve made recently.

First, some friends and I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto (伏見稲荷大社), which is the head shrine of Inari, the Japanese God of foxes, rice, agriculture, industry, etc. I learned that about one-third of all the shrines in Japan are dedicated to Inari (around 32 000 shrines), and that number only includes those with a full-time resident priest working there! 

We spent a few hours on the trek climbing to the summit and returning to the entrance. However, we are not sure if we actually reached the top or not, as it was not clearly marked, and the mountain is full of trees! When we had climbed a little bit more, we came to a site where we could buy some souvenirs and pay for them by just putting a donation in a box! I managed to get a few nice shots of the torii gates and the beautiful surroundings. Fushimi Inari is one of the most popular shrines in Japan for foreigners to visit, and I highly recommend a trip there!

Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Shrine

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Secondly, we went to Arashiyama (嵐山) by bike and visited the monkey park they have there! The climb up the mountain reminded me of Fushimi Inari’s steeps steps, although the hike up was much shorter in terms of kilometers. Finally, atop Mt. Arashiyama, we were welcomed by a large group of monkeys! On the way up, we were warned by a sign to not look the monkeys directly in the eyes, and also to not touch them or give them food.

Kyoto - Dont do this
Kyoto - Monkeys
Kyoto - Monkeys
Kyoto - Monkeys
Kyoto

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