*This review does not reflect the views of Her Campus Waseda.
To all fellow Waseda SILS (School of International Liberal Studies) students, go ahead to our department’s website and give our Dean’s little message a good long read. Go on, soak it all in; the part about how he mentions that SILS is a department to be ‘taught in English,’ or about how this department is a ‘resounding success.’ I believe, at best, these statements are debatable based on my personal experiences attending the SILS program. I also think change is vital if this department really wants to adhere to its promises and to produce credible thinkers.
We’ve all had our share of imagining what a perfect college would be like; having freedom from our parents, joining social and college clubs, and learning from quality educators that will forever change our lives. I have to admit that no college is perfect and can’t satisfy everyone, yet something in me tells me that the students of SILS are not even getting the minimum treatment of what the major guaranteed us. In an economically developed country like Japan, one would expect the quality of education to be on par yet are met with baffling results. As I befriended a lot of foreign exchange students from all parts of the western world, I tried to ask most of them what their view was on the SILS program as a major. The most common statement I hear from my American friends are: “community colleges can teach better than most of the teachers here.” However, the big winner from what I’ve gathered with the exchange students is the statement that SILS is “alright as an exchange program, but I would not want to get a degree here.”
As someone who worked and paid himself to attend this program, such statements as those just mentioned really make me contemplate of whether if the money I spent was worth it. Another key aspect that put the education I’m getting under a brighter light is the experiences I’ve had taking classes here in SILS. Personally, I have numerous anecdotes that show the inadequacy and the unprofessionalism shown by this department, but I will try to recount my worst one to set SILS in a more relatable perspective.
There was a professor, who will remain unnamed because I’m not a total a**hole, who taught a specific aspect of economics and basically sounded illiterate whenever voicing out the English language. This professor would mumble so much when speaking English that I initially thought he had a speech impediment, and hence thought I should try my best to empathize and just get by. I then hear him speak Japanese and kind of feel tricked and betrayed because I was just so sure that something was wrong with him. My best attempt at empathy turned in to condemnation because it was obvious that this man wasn’t fit enough to teach any English oriented college class. Yet there he was, pompous and proud of his ability to endow us with his ‘gift’ of knowledge. Despite his lackluster and disorganized teaching methods, a few students in his class decided to submit an official complaint asking, basically begging, this professor to simply speak just a tad clearer so that we can actually understand his lessons. How does this 50+ year old, presumably mature, adult react? By sending a mass e-mail to the class boasting about his 120 point in TOEFL, and how more than qualified this man is to teach a college class in the English tongue. Have you been to a TOEFL testing center and hear your fellow test takers do the speaking section? It’s a shit show. Its obvious that being adequate in the TOEFL speaking section really doesn’t prove that you can teach a specified area of knowledge to a large college class. To show his disappointment and distaste to the recent allegations of his lack of speaking skills, he would then continue to add more unnecessary restrictive rules to the classroom so that he can show us who’s boss. My 3rd grade elementary teacher wasn’t even that petty and I remember flicking her off. However educated and skilled this professor is in economics, it was clear as day that he was in no way capable of educating others of his knowledge with the English language.
The disturbing fact is that such teaching ‘styles’ similar to the professor just mentioned is something of a commonplace occurrence here at SILS. There have been multiple professors who basically read off a script the entire class, and answer students’ questions in the Japanese tongue. I’m forced to take 24 Japanese credits to graduate with a degree, so I really don’t need any more Japanese in a class that promised me an all-understandable English education.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my share of very gifted, verbally understandable, and knowledgeable professors that can motivate an entire classroom just with his or her passion for their topic. It’s just that there are plainly not enough of those professors to match with the quality of education that I was promised here. It frustrates me that this is what my hard work has gotten me, and frustrates me even more that I have to consider every single good professor as a huge breath of fresh air.
I was filled with excitement when I first started out this program, expecting something way more than not what SILS promised, but what they actually offer. After one academic year here, I feel like SILS is James Doakes from the show Dexter shouting “SURPRISE MOTHERFU**ER!” to my face and constantly slapping me with a big veiny dildo.
One could say it’d be wrong of me to compare SILS to an ideal model because its unrealistic, but why can’t I? Isn’t the first step of progress and development to properly criticize? Isn’t it such a cop out and a cowardly thing to do to just reply with a “well, every college has their problems”? Why not localize our flaws and as liberal, free-minded students confidently ask the college bureaucracy to uphold a higher expectation of education quality? I’ve met, myself included, a lot of people who groan and grumble about the situation, but never came across an individual that had the light bulb idea to actually take initiative. I’ve met so many gifted students who are thirsty for a better-funneled form of knowledge, yet are derived from it because of our major’s either delusional or misinformed outlook in the SILS education system. Our major bares the word liberal in its name, yet the students are far from liberated in terms of the freedom to learn comprehensively. Yet we all just shrug it off. We ask ourselves ‘what can I do?” and just keep our head down till all this is over. While we’ve entered one of the most formative years of our lives, we are content in having half-assedness dictate what we will be able to vocalize and utilize in our professional future.
All hope is not lost yet, however, as I believe that we, the millennial, know our self worth and what we really deserve. We just have to take that first step and openly discuss about what’s wrong around us. We have to discuss in such a way that a possible solution will always arise after a criticism. It will take time but I deeply believe change is bound to happen, as we are aware of our self worth.