By Shannon Morgan
Staff Writer
@shannonlacyy

Deciding to revisit her roots, Coppell High School senior Mio Yamada has chosen to attend Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan for college. While a year or even a semester abroad seems daunting to some college students, Yamada will be spending the next four years in a different country in a completely different culture than what she grew up with.

Yamada is in the International Baccalaureate [IB] program, which she claims helped her when applying to Sophia University.

“I am going to Sophia University over in Tokyo, Japan. The application process was actually really easy, only due to the fact that I’m in the  International Baccalaureate [IB] program,” Yamada said.. “So I can transfer all my credits,, and I can use everything I did over here over there. I just sent in my predicted scores for my IB diploma, my ACT scores and I wrote a very short essay- it was only 500 words – for the application, and then I got accepted.”

Since Yamada has lived in America her whole life, she has never been fully immersed into the Japanese culture. She is hoping that by going to college in Tokyo she can reconnect with her heritage.

“‘I’m actually really excited about this because this a chance for me to experience my own culture, and because I was born and raised in America I never really got to live over in Japan,” Yamada said. “This will really be a chance for me to go and experience everything about living in Japan from the culture, to the social aspect to anything else you can think of.”

Currently she is undecided in her major, but she believes that she will probably be going into International business. Yamada also plans on attending grad school in America after four years in Japan.

Despite the general fears that anyone would feel when moving far away from home, Yamada has very few worries.

“I have a lot of family [in Japan] and a couple of good friends, but I think that I am mostly nervous about the culture shock,” Yamada said. “The culture over in Japan is very different compared to here. Everything from how you greet someone to how you dress. I think i’m a little bit afraid of not fitting in or not knowing the social procedures.”

Besides this, transition into the Japanese lifestyle should be easy.

“Luckily I am going in to the international faculty of it, so I’ll my classes will be in English and I’ll be surrounded by a lot of other kids from European countries,” Yamada said. “So I think it’s going to be a good experience for not to just learn about by own heritage and culture of Japan, but also to meet other people from around the world.