Maya from Ryukoku

8 Nov 2024

Maya Irie Menzl, a Global Studies student in Ryukoku came for her semester abroad in 2018 to study English in the Language Centre and has returned to undertake a Master’s in Applied Linguistics here in UCC. 

Our Language Centre has a long-standing relationship with UCC’s partner university Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. For many years now, Ryukoku has been sending cohorts of students to our Centre for intensive English language courses as part of their Semester Abroad programme. We take in students from the beginning of September to the end of semester in December and also from the start of May to the end of August. 

The students are integrated into either our English for Work and Life programme or our Academic English programme. Over a period of 15 weeks with us, they make great progress in their English language proficiency and enjoy all that student life offers in our University and beyond campus. The students are very active and join many of the clubs and societies UCC offers. 

Depending on the time of the year, Ryukoku students can either stay in campus accommodation or with host families. 

One such student was Maya Irie Menzl, a Global Studies student in Ryukoku, who came for her semester abroad in 2018 and we are so happy to see Maya has returned to undertake a Master’s in Applied Linguistics here in UCC. 

Maya is Canadian Japanese and has spent most of her life in Kyoto, Japan. Her undergraduate degree was Global Studies, which is a fairly new area of study within social sciences. “What I studied includes politics, immigration, human rights, international law, philosophy, postcolonialism, and feminism. My final thesis was focused on Latin America.” Maya told us. 

Initially what attracted Maya to Ireland was the cultural phenomena -  Riverdance, and since first seeing it, she always dreamt of coming to Ireland. When Ryukoku university offered a chance to study abroad in Ireland, she couldn’t think of a better choice than coming to Cork and Ireland.

The experience in the Language Centre was great. Maya found the teachers here were very friendly and they were always helpful with studying, or to help students with life in Cork. 

“I was in C1 class (advanced level), so all the classmates had really good English. Personally, until coming to Language Centre all the English classes were not challenging for me as I grew up speaking English at home as a heritage language. But the class here was my first time experiencing that I needed to work hard to keep up to the class and it was challenging/exciting!

The class was not only about learning English but also we had a theme every week (science, history, Irish language, etc.) to discuss and present every week.

“The best part was that I met good friends here. Some of us are still in contact, and lots of them are moving to other countries, getting a job, and as someone who always wanted to move to another country, watching those friends accomplishing their goals has always been a motivation for me.”

Maya loved the experience of living in Cork, a city which she found to be both very Irish and also very international. It contrasted in atmosphere very much from Kyoto and Japan.

 Maya stayed with an Irish host family and loved the experience of this cultural immersion: “My host family taught me Irish history or Gaeilge, and I learned a lot from them too. When the class ended I would sometimes go out with my friends, or stay in the library and catch up on my assignments. During the time in Cork people would ask things about Japan, and I realized that I actually don’t know as much as I should know.”

After graduating from Ryukoku University, Maya decided she wanted to come back to Cork and pursue a Master’s in Applied Linguistics here in UCC. She cites her experience in her English class with one of her teachers, Annarita, as a motivating factor. She recalls the conversations they had in class about the concepts of second language acquisition and bilingualism; what it means to be a native speaker and how accents emerge and differ from one another. 

Maya’s area of interest “is bilingualism, and Ireland as a nation is bilingual (Gaeilge/English) and also it has many immigrant populations with many language backgrounds. If I am conducting field research, it gives me resources.”

The fact that not many Japanese universities offer Applied Linguistics as a master’s degree also made our University an attractive option. 

For Maya, there are many differences in lifestyle and expectations between Ireland and Japan: “In Japan there’s a social pressure to work in a big name company, get married by a certain age, and there is this ideal image that people have, and falling from that was the scariest thing for me. In Ireland, my friends that I had at the time seemed to be free spirited, free from social pressure and that perspective has freed me to be brave!”

Student life can be quite difficult, with students having many assignments each week, typically having to read a chapter of a book and write a short essay on it. Maya describes having to collaborate with classmates to reduce the workload in the division of reading the chapters and then meeting to share their findings. There was a lot of work, long nights, but Maya feels that from this experience she discovered that she loves learning. 

Should other Ryukoku students wish to follow in Maya’s steps, she offered the following advice:

“If there is one piece of advice that I wish I had been given during undergraduate it would be, don’t be afraid. I never saw myself doing a Master’s nor I had anyone around me who has a Master’s degree. I was scared if I am going to be able to get into the programme, whether I am smart enough to keep up with the class, or whether I am going to be able to write a 20,000 words thesis to graduate (yet to be confirmed!). There is a lot of uncertainty especially after graduating from college and there will be changes, but if you ever want to continue your education, or live in another country, you have to give it a try.
On a different note, I would highly recommend meeting lots of new people. Ireland in general is easy to get by if you know somebody. If you ever want to come back, or even to go somewhere else, it will be easier if you have somebody to ask for advice.”

For those students coming on semester abroad programmes from Ryukoku to our Language Centre, Maya’s advice is simple: “If you are coming to Ireland, don’t just learn English, but try to learn Irish culture, history, and maybe Gaeilge as well! Your experience will be better for it.”

With the partnership UCC has with Ryukoku University, UCC students often head to Kyoto as exchange students. Maya encourages them to immerse themselves in Japanese culture; to learn as much of the language as possible and just like her to be brave. You won’t regret it, she says. 

Looking to the future, Maya plans to take a CELTA course in our Centre after graduation, to pursue a career as a language teacher. Already qualified to teach Japanese, Maya likes the environment of university and the field of academia.　

It is great to see how the experience of a Semester Abroad programme in our Language Centre sparked a passion for language and linguistics and to see students like Maya return to our University to undertake a Master’s degree. We wish Maya all the very best and look forward to seeing how her career develops.