Improvements in the campus life orientation for new international students

When I was assigned to the Advising and Counseling Section of the International Student Center in Novermber 1999, I found out that a campus life orientation for new international students had only ever been given to intensive Japanese language trainees who were under the care of the Center, and not to other students who were enrolled with other faculties and graduate schools at Okayama University. I succeeded in setting up a campus life orientation for all new international students studying at our university in 2001. However, it turned out that very few of the privately financed students participated in the orientation, despite the fact that they accunted for three quarters of the total international student population. The low ratio of participation and the student's ignorance of rules concerning employment in part-time jobs resulted in numerous problems with the immigration bureau and the police. I persuaded the International Student Office not to permit a student to take up a part-time job unless he/she had attended an orientation session. Finally, the office agreed with my opinion and put a new policy into practice in October 2006. As a result, the number of incidents involving trouble with the immigration bureau has remarkably decreased since then. Since 2001, I have been constantly adding and revising the items that are included in the orientation sessions in order to meet the demands and requirements of new students. In this report, I will introduce a short history of how campus life orientation has been improved at Okayama University