High-ranking visitor from Japan – result of a long-standing partnership

Last Friday, the Short-Term Programs Team of RWTH International Academy received a visit from Prof. Norihisa Miki, Chair of International Affairs at the Faculty of Science and Technology of Keio University in Japan.

RWTH International Academy has been running the Summer School "German Engineering, Language & Culture" for 17 years. Every summer, students from Keio University come to Aachen for three weeks. In addition to exciting insights into engineering and natural sciences taught at RWTH, there is a German language course and a comprehensive social program including RWTH mentors who introduce the students from Japan to student life in Aachen and are also available for a German lesson or two.

In September 2023, we successfully held this Summer School again and were once again thrilled with the great relationships and friendships that developed.

Since spring of this year, we have also been running the Spring School between RWTH and Keio University, where students focus entirely on language acquisition and tandem learning of Japanese and German.

We are very grateful to Prof. Norihisa Miki and his team for the great support and preparation of the students in both programs – year after year. Thanks to him and his colleagues, even during the Corona pandemic, we were able to run a successful online course with over 20 participants, and now, after Corona, we were delighted to have 30 students on campus and 10 mentors from Aachen.

These programs and continuing formats were discussed in the meeting last Friday. We are very attached to Prof. Miki and are glad that he could finally experience in person the place that so many students have visited before him. Surely this will make recruitment even easier in the years to come. We are now working on developing more ideas on how we can further promote student exchange between Japan and Germany, especially between Keio University and RWTH Aachen University.

Many thanks also to Mrs. Bettina Dinter and the International Office for accompanying our visitor and organizing the day at RWTH Aachen University.