College Search Help

[airichan623]

So I'm starting to do college visits, and I'm looking for recommendations. I'm looking for a school of any size over 1000, Christian or secular. I want a school with a quality secondary ed/ history department, and a solid Japanese program, tho a Japanese major being available is not a requirement. I would be extremely happy if it also had at least a little bit of a otaku presence.
An urban location is prefered (wow that sounded really professional)
Does anybody have any good recommendations for me? All would be helpful.

Soon I will be visiting Calvin College in Grand Rapids soon, so PM me if u go there!

And does anybody know anything about Asuza Pacific that would be helpful?

[TWWK]

There are a lot of schools which fit those requirements. You may want to think about location and whether cost means anything to you. Obviously, out of state public schools will cost more and private schools will cost most of all.

When it comes to languages, schools with strong Asian Studies programs are generally located along the coasts. Almost all California state universities have excellent programs, as do the Washington schools. The east coast is also full of great Asian Studies programs. Japanese will be taught at all these schools, and also in some Texas schools and in some Midwesterns schools (I'm just guessing Northwestern and University of Chicago at the least).

I'll comment on the rest later tonight when I have more time. I was a history major and got a secondary school certification, and taught high school and middle school history, so I definitely know about that some also!

(cont.)

It really depends what you want to do in regards to history. If you want to teach, then it doesn't matter too much where you go for history. There are reasonable history departments all over the country, as long as you go to a decent university. If you're thinking about possible post-grad work, you'll need to do some research. Universities are known for specific fields (ex. Asian history, Mexican history, etc.). You'll need to look at the school's professors and see how much they've been published. Of course, first of all, you'll need to decide your area of interest. Again, if you're thinking Asian history, the west coast has the best schools generally. Highly ranked private schools should have good history programs, however, in most areas.

Secondary school certification is offered by many schools. This is tricky, though - you'll need to look at the programs offered through school websites. How in-depth are they? Do they provide their success rates? The tricky part is that one state could have 20 certification programs - but which ones are hired first by schools? In Texas, for instance, you could be a great teacher who graduated from the University of Houston, but UT-Austin teachers will almost always get hired ahead of you.

If you're thinking Texas, I can give you more details. Just PM me.

[Cognitive Gear]

Try the college search at College Board. This helped me a lot in searching for the right college for me. It will take you through your preferences step by step, and then you can do a direct, side by side comparison of your top choices. It really is a fantastic tool.

[airichan623]

Try the college search at College Board. This helped me a lot in searching for the right college for me. It will take you through your preferences step by step, and then you can do a direct, side by side comparison of your top choices. It really is a fantastic tool.

I tried it, and it only found Japanese majors, and combined w/ secondary ed and a couple other things and I got very few results, Calvin not among them. So I found it unhelpful. Money I can worry about later, and location does not matter tome. I like to travel/live in new places.

[Kaori]

Any liberal arts college and any university will have a history major and a secondary education major; those criteria are very broad. Looking for schools that offer Japanese will limit your search more, probably, since many small colleges do not have a Japanese department (mine didn’t).

Soon I will be visiting Calvin College in Grand Rapids

That was my second choice school as an undergrad. Seemed like a good school—but of course you’ll get a feel for it when you visit.

For reasons somewhat different from yours, I happened to run across Villanova University, which is a Catholic university located near Philadelphia that offers majors in history and secondary education and a minor in Japanese. I don’t know very much about the place, having never been there, but based on some figures like their undergraduate admission statistics and retention rate (which, by the way, is a really good figure to consider when choosing a college), it seems like a pretty good school. It’s hard to say whether those departments are good or not, but they do offer graduate degrees in both history and secondary education, and usually if a department offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees, that’s a positive indicator. You can find out what those particular departments have to say for themselves by following the links from their index of undergraduate majors.

I’m not particularly recommending or not recommending this place, since I really don’t know very much about it and have no idea whether the departments you’re interested in are strong; it’s just a school that happened to come to mind.

[Kaligraphic]

There's really no one perfect school for you. Rather, there are many good schools, and you can make any of them "the right school" by engaging fully in the education process.

Definitely look at price. If you can get a quality education in-state at a public school, take advantage of the lower tuition. Likewise if you have quality junior colleges around, you may be able to reduce cost further by doing your lower-level general-education requirements there.

College tuition is generally rising, and new grads are coming out with record levels of debt for education that, frankly, doesn't live up to the inflated costs. Don't be fooled by the hype - you don't have to mortgage your firstborn in advance to get a quality education. Look at price, and see what you can get scholarships to cover. You can probably get at least something covered if you try.

[airichan623]

There's really no one perfect school for you.

Definitely look at price. If you can get a quality education in-state at a public school, take advantage of the lower tuition. Likewise if you have quality junior colleges around, you may be able to reduce cost further by doing your lower-level general-education requirements there.

Look at price, and see what you can get scholarships to cover. You can probably get at least something covered if you try.

I know no school is perfect, I just dont have any good ideas. And I'm a traveller by nature, and my state is just too.... Midwestern, ethnocentric, and a little boring. I'm goin for academic scholarships, but right now, I want to find a good school option and THEN worry about price. And w/ jr college, my local jr colleges are full of, frankly, the rich underachievers looking for a degree. its a bad and sorta mistaken idea, but I cant see my self doing that.

[Kaligraphic]

If you want a change of state and a Japanese program, find something in California near the coast, and take up surfing.

When the sticker shock hits you, though, don't say I didn't warn you. And try as hard as you can not to take out loans to pay for school.

[Atria35]

Urban is gonna cost more, too.

You also should know that teaching certificates don't transfer from most states- there are a lot of states that have their own individual requirements that you have to pass, so if you're going to teach then you need to pick a state that you don't mind going to school in.

I know that the university I'm going to right now (I'm in Illinois) offers both the teaching degree and a minor in Japanese studies. But you'd have to want to teach in Illinois with that teaching degree. It's also a relatively recent urban area, so while you have a lot of the modern conveniences, you're also surrounded by cornfields just a few minutes out. But it's also decently cheap.

The best one I know of, if you want to have some freedom of movement in the US, is the teaching degree that you get in Michigan. It's also good in Iowa and at least 2 other states. Plus Michigan has some of the best teacher benefits in the US if you can get hired there.

[TWWK]

You also should know that teaching certificates don't transfer from most states- there are a lot of states that have their own individual requirements that you have to pass, so if you're going to teach then you need to pick a state that you don't mind going to school in.

This is a good point. However, also note that many (most?) states will let you teach for a certain amount of time without a teaching certificate until you're able to test for one. For instance, if you get a NY teaching certificate and move to Texas for a job, you can teach for a full year w/o being certified in that area you are teaching in.

But I would guess that most areas would want to hire a teacher that is already certified in that state, unless you come with amazing credentials.

Also, the point about cost is really important, too. School becomes very hard if you're weighed down by having to work to squeak by, and it's very hard to start out in life with debt - ANY debt. Imagine if you go to a private school, where it's easy to accumulate $150,000 in debt over four years. Then you become a teacher and earn $40,000 a year (which is generous in some places). It will take you many, many years to pay off your debt.

[Atria35]

This is a good point. However, also note that many (most?) states will let you teach for a certain amount of time without a teaching certificate until you're able to test for one. For instance, if you get a NY teaching certificate and move to Texas for a job, you can teach for a full year w/o being certified in that area you are teaching in.

Oh, yes, the NASDTEC Interstate Agreement!

http://www.nasdtec.org/agreement.php

I think you're right about most states letting you do that, but you'd have to check which ones.