Japan

This advanced Japanese course is designed for students to acquire the necessary skills to express one's thoughts and opinions. Students are split into groups to engage in activities, discussion, and group work concerning a selected topic. The goal of the class is for students to widen their perspectives and deepen their knowledge regarding various issues related to Japan and Japanese society. The program offers various theme courses and students may take multiple sections. 

This course explores different aspects of the relationship between language and economy, looking at the economic value of language; the linguistic side of the economy, and how the relationship between economic and linguistic forces help shapes today's global world. 

This course offers an introduction to biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, early development, and neurobiology. It is an omnibus lecture consisting of multiple topics. The course teaches the basic concept of molecular and cellular biology, which is the basis of modern biology. Furthermore, it aims to understand the cell as the basic unit of life, analyzing its composition, functions, replication, and differentiation. 

This is an intermediate Japanese language course. It continues Japanese II at ICU and is equivalent to quarter six to seven (third year) at UC. Upon completion of this course students will have mastered basic contemporary Japanese grammar, vocabulary, and a total of 94 kanji including new readings. With this foundation students should be able to express themselves in both spoken and written forms at a level necessary for simple daily university student life.

Through practical assignments, students will comprehensively develop various writing skills necessary for university studies, research, and student life.

Eligibility: B2 level in the CEFR/JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education (N1 in the JLPT).

The objectives of this course are as follows:
1. Students deepen their knowledge and thinking by reading a variety of texts and developing the ability to construct logic by practicing writing repeatedly.
2. Students will be able to select and utilize appropriate expression styles and grammar.
3. Students will be able to choose appropriate expressions according to the reader and the situation and convey messages via e-mail and SMS message.

The aim of this lecture is to familiarize students with the various methods of media research (both quantitative and qualitative) and their theoretical backgrounds. Students may already know (and be using) some of the methods and theories, but this course aims to enlighten them of other approaches as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the various methods.

The course includes engagement with videos about media research methods as well as discussion of recent articles from media and communication journals. Students will be expected to introduce each article in class to facilitate the discussion. Students will gain an understanding of the different kinds of media research methods, as well as when, how and why they were developed. This is not a practical course so students will not be taught how to use particular methods, but this course should help them make a more informed choice of research methods for their own projects.

This course introduces students to the fundamental theory and practice of the social, political, legal, and ethical implications of computer technologies in Japan and abroad. Through in-class activities, group assignments, and reflection work, students will gain a basic understanding of essential concepts, modern and historical cases, and guidelines for best practice. Key concepts include AI bias; privacy in the social media era; personal data and digital behavior tracking; vectors of misinformation; stereotypes in design, digital inclusion, and more. The main objective is to inform and encourage critical thinking in students who will be playing key roles in deciding, creating, marketing, governing, and disseminating computer technologies in Japan.

Typically, the first class each week will introduce a new topic, with interactive activities (e.g., hands-on demos, brainstorming, quick activities), individual reflection, and group discussion. Students will be given a homework assignment to be completed before the second class that week. That second class will start with a discussion of the homework and introduce the next topic for that week. Students will be expected to complete readings from the text and/or other sources before the next week of classes. Attendance is taken randomly in every class.

The course covers the analytical tools and techniques that are necessary to examine a wide variety of fixed income securities and their derivatives. Fixed income securities are financial instruments whose cashflows are fixed and determined in advance. The instruments we cover include treasury and corporate bonds, bond futures, and interest rate swaps. After introducing the notion of yields, duration and convexity, and term structure models, we discuss the evaluation and the risk management of fixed income investments.

The aim of this course is to provide students with the introductory theory of fixed income securities and its applications to the investments. After completing the course, the students will: (i) Be familiar with the basic concepts such as yields, duration and convexity; (ii) Develop and apply the tools for pricing and hedging the fixed income securities; (iii) Understand the theoretical models for the pricing of fixed income securities, and (iv) Master the interest rate derivatives and its applications for hedging and risk management.

This course covers the CEFR A1 level of spoken and written Japanese. It focuses on interactive communication activities relevant to the learners themselves and their immediate surroundings. Students will develop overall language proficiency through listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities on various topics.

The course utilizes Hiragana and Katakana in class materials (slides, homework, class announcements, etc.) from the first week. Also, there will be Hiragana and Katakana quizzes within the first two weeks. Please check Hiragana and Katakana (read & write) before class starts.

By the end of this course, students will be able to get an idea of the content provided by very basic words and phrases on the most common everyday situations, speak and write simple phrases and sentences in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics, and interact in a simple way if delivered directly to him/her.

This course requires reading several short texts by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which introduce us to ideas about philosophy and what constitutes philosophical inquiry. As different as these two philosophers are, Rousseau had a tremendous impact on Kant. It is helpful to read Kant in the light of Rousseau. Each thinker will introduce us to some basic philosophical problem and we will think for ourselves about these problems.

This course aims to introduce the subject of philosophy but also the activity of philosophizing. This means that there will be much discussion in class and a fair amount of writing outside of class. The ideal would be to form a "community of inquirers." The depth of realizing this ideal will be up to each student.