Kyushu University is one of the seven national universities of Japan. In Japanese the university is called kyushu daigaku, but most Japanese contract this to 'Kyudai'. It is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, and certainly the best one on the island of Kyushu. Although this has absolutely no effect on the JTW students or the JTW program, it is nice for the JTW students to know that the Japanese students around them are supposed to be real smart.

Kyudai was established in 1911 with medical and engineering faculties. The university now has ten faculties ranging from Law to Agriculture. There are about 16,000 students enrolled at Kyudai and spread over three campuses in Fukuoka. The main campus is in Hakozaki, which is where the International Student Center (ISC) may be found. The administration has been planning for many years now to move this main campus south of Fukuoka to other side of Meinohama, but when this will actually happen is still a mystery.

The truth about Kyudai is that the campus contains some of the most uninspired architecture in all of Asia. Actually, that's putting it a little too nicely; the campus is just plain UGLY! The buildings are all old and dying. This would still be acceptable if they were at least somewhat pleasing to look at in the first place, but this can only be said of two of the oldest buildings on campus (pictured above and below). The rest of the buildings are absolute eyesores, and what little grass and shrubbery that can be found around campus don't do much to make up for this. Most buildings are about five or six stories tall, with windows all the way around the building and no unique character whatsoever. The few buildings that are a bit different seem to have something else wrong with them. My favorite is the building that is made almost completely of concrete and was originally all gray until the war, when they covered it in tar so that allied bombers wouldn't be able to take it out as easily. The trick worked, as the building survived the bombings, but the tar was never removed so the building still has large black strips of tar adorning its exterior walls. The students and faculty of Kyudai will readily agree with foreign students when complaining about the appearance of the school, but the general consensus seems to be that "although ugly, the campus is quite functional and that is all you really should ask of a university". Fortunately the ISC building is one of the newer buildings on campus and isn't quite so ugly, although it certainly couldn't be described as beautiful either. The campus, despite its lack of charm, does eventually grow on students and after about a month or two of seeing it everyday, students tend to forget just how incredibly repulsive it really is.

Despite its appearance, Kyudai is a good university and provides JTW students with a pretty good environment for learning about Japan. All JTW classes and Japanese language classes are held in the ISC building. One of the smaller buildings on campus, it still has a nice auditorium for all sorts of big meetings and parties, plenty of classrooms, and a nice computer room open only to JTW students. The university library is rather nice, with an entire room devoted to English-language material and about twenty new computers installed a year ago. For students who don't want to become as skinny as the Japanese, there are two weight rooms and a sports complex across the street from the ISC building. In the end, once students get over the initial shock of having to spend a year in such a horrid looking place, they realize it could always be worse... they could be paying for it, like their Japanese counterparts.

More information about Kyudai may be found on their webpage.