Category Archives: Ueda City

Ueda School Visit 2023

Sara waving goodbye to the students

By Sara, Participant of Session 2, From USA

Today we visited several schools in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture. While visiting Daisan Junior High School, we were met with such an extreme amount of kindness and energy from the students! The students made us feel welcomed into their school through their excitement and made conversations feel natural even through the language barrier. The students were also very knowledgeable on the topics we were given and showed that they had put lots of time into preparing for our discussion. It truly was an amazing experience as it was my first time visiting a school outside of the United States. I hope that we left as good of an impression on them as they left on us and that World Campus is invited to visit again in the future!

Pedro’s Testimony


I took part in WCI 2010’s 3rd Session in Ueda and Toride.

Being part of this program brought many amazing changes and opportunities. At first, I could have not imagined how this whole experience would be: the multicultural staff and participants, being in a foreign country with such a unique culture and customs and the thing that turned out to be my favorite, being inside the life of a regular Japanese host family.

Through WCI, not only we could have access to facilities and do things a regular visitor wouldn’t be able to do, but we can interact and live with locals. Additionally, even though it takes place in Japan, the program is not all about Japan; it’s about learning to see the world with a more internationalist point of view, knowing other cultures and losing biased prior views which we build throughout our lives.
During the program I stayed with two host families, both were really nice and open minded to the “flaws” that we foreigners commit in Japan, such as using the toilet slippers inside the house! But with one of the host families, the relationship I built with them was so intense and strong that our relation got stronger with time. We exchanged mails and I was able to visit them one more time after the program. I such a great time during New Year’s holidays with them and they made me feel as a member of the family!

In a nutshell, the program made me open my mind to the differences, correct my pre conceptions about Japan and other countries, and most importantly, made me leave a part of my heart with each of the good friends I made there.

Pedro Aguilar
Brazil

Regarding March 11, 2011 Japanese Earthquake

March 12, 2011

Dear Friends of World Campus International,

The shocking earthquake hitting the north-east part of Japan has caused massive destruction to the region. Currently, the Japanese national and local governments are working to assess the degree of damage.

Though there are areas of Japan that have been severely affected, all of our partner communities seem to have avoided tragedy. Currently, we do plan to facilitate the World Campus – Japan program from June 23 thru August 30.

Because the damages are reported in the northern region of Japan, and our community partners are located in central to western Japan, we are confident that our summer program will not be affected by the earthquake.

We have already contacted several community partners who are hosting our summer program and confirmed that they are OK and not severely or at all affected by these tragic events. We will continue to reach out to the rest of our community partners and communicate to you via this website any updated information.

Thank you for your understanding.

Hiro Nishimura
Chairman and CEO
World Campus International, Inc.

Update: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on March 17, 2011

Update 2: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on April 06, 2011 – Regarding New 2011 World Campus – Japan Program plan

Oishii Arigato Event

World Campus Cooking

It was Arigato Event Day and even when this day is usually very packed, the LOC (Local Organizing Committee) members from Ueda planned a potluck for after the event which normally doesn’t affect our schedule.

This day we, World Campus -Japan Participants were going to cook the meals for the Potluck! We splited up into 5 teams and cooked something from our countries and cultures, we had everything from Caseroles from USA to Guacamole (Avocado Dip) from Mexico. From filled Red Peppers and Tomatoes from Greece to Mash Potatoes and Beef from Canada. It was defenitely very Oishii (delicious in Japanese).

Everyone cooked what they could with the ingredients they could find in Japan. The families enjoyed the food and so did we, but most important, We learned from each other and from ourselves, about team work, recipes, flavors and cultures and we had a great time doing it.