Japanese

Japan has the world’s third largest economy, advanced technology in many areas, and an exciting popular culture that influences the Euro-American cultural mainstream. Individual students enroll in the Japanese major for many reasons. Friendships with Japanese, experience traveling abroad or even enjoying Japanese food locally, the practice of a martial art, and the love of Japanese popular media such as manga and anime have motivated students to pursue the study of Japanese language, culture, and history at Carolina. Once in the program, students enjoy meeting others with similar enthusiasms and often take part in related extracurricular activities such as the Japan Club and the anime club, COUp.

Many Japanese majors work in Japan after graduation, often as English language teachers. The study of Japanese and the Carolina experience have led our graduates to many career paths back in the U.S., such as teaching, legal practice, medicine, translation, and business. The Career Services Office at UNC-Chapel Hill can provide advice to students on how to find work abroad and in the U.S. that makes use of their Japanese ability.

The Department of Asian Studies offers Japanese language courses, advanced literature, culture, and history courses in Japanese, and Japanese cultural studies and history courses taught in English. Students can major or minor in Japanese, study Japanese as their Asian language for the interdisciplinary major in Asian Studies, or simply choose Japanese to satisfy their foreign language requirement.