HEIWA NAKAJIMA SCHOLARSHIP
This scholarship is an invited only scholarship. The JS department will choose a student (mainly based on CAP as well as interview) and nominate him/her for the scholarship.There is only one requirement by the Heiwa Nakajima Fundation: to be accepted for a one-year SEP at any Japanese university.
Getting the scholarship will entitle you to the following:
- Free round-trip air ticket to Japan (max 300,000yen)
- First time settling-in allowance (200,000yen)
- Monthly allowance (120,000yen/mth)
APPLICATION
First, pay attention to any emails sent out by the JS department regarding scholarships. There will be various types of scholarships available so do think about which one suits you the most before applying. There will also be a scholarship interview conducted by normally 2 professors who will then decide which scholarship to award to who. Be sure to download the scholarship related form, fill it in and respond by email on when you can make it for the interview. Missing the interview will most likely result in not being able to get any scholarship as most scholarships are invited-only scholarships.
Upon selection, I received a call from the department saying that I've been nominated for the scholarship. I then had to arrange a meeting with the person-in-charge with the scholarship matters. It was Morita Emi sensei for me.
APPLICATION FORMS
There are 3 application forms in total. 候補者の推薦について、奨学金申込書 and 推薦書及び留学計画書. All 3 was emailed to me as a set in .doc format. Everything must be typed in Japanese (except for names, address, etc). It's a must to fill in the 3rd form in Japanese.
1) 候補者の推薦について
- Home faculty, department as well as department head's name
- Partner university's name as well as the faculty you're accepted into (for Kwansei, I entered 日本・東アジア研究プログラム but it is also fine entering 人文学部)
- The usual kind of application form where you'll have to attach a recent passport size photo of yourself
- Under 指導教員名, put down the name and info of the person-in-charge of handling such scholarships in the JS department. As for the 事務担当者名, put down the name and info of the JS department admin.
- Address of the partner university
- Name of the teacher-in-charge (If unknown, fill in 未知)
- Name of the department in charge of overseas students as well as the person-in-charge of that department. (This information can mostly be found in the partner university's exchange pamphlet or website)
- A short paragraph written by any professors or tutors to state reasons for the recommendation.
- 4 separate boxes to be filled in. Plans for Japanese language studies, reasons for studying Japanese, history of learning Japanese, level of Japanese achieved and future plans after the exchange.
POST-APPLICATION
After submitting the application forms to the JS department, there's nothing else to do but to wait. It was a pretty long wait for me. I submitted the forms in mid-Jan and only received the confirmation lettr from the department in mid-June. It was about 2 weeks after I received the confirmation letter from Kwansei Gakuin. All the other senpais received the confirmation letter at a different timing so I guess that it is only after the partner university accepts you officially, will then Heiwa Nakajima send out the scholarship confirmation letter. So, don't panic too much when you haven't receive the confirmation letter (like I did =X). It'll arrive eventually.
So, when I finally received the confirmation letter, there was a total of 5 documents in the envelope. 証明書、証明書領収書、来日予定届、 誓約書 and 説明書.
1) 証明書: This will state the various terms in the scholarship (eg. how much you can claim for air ticket, monthly allowance, first time settling-in allowance)
2) 証明書領収書: fill it in and either email the person-in-charge that you've received it OR fax it OR mail it
3) 来日予定届: I was asked to mail this to them after confirming the date that I'll reach Japan
4) 誓約書: This was also asked to be mailed to them after filling it up.
5) 説明書: This will contain various terms and conditions about the scholarship.
Note: Mail it to them using normal mail. Registered mail or Speedpost won't work as it is a P.O. Box address that they provided. After posting it, it is best to send them an e-mail saying that you've posted it so that they can keep a lookout for it.
After they received the forms in Japan, they sent me another email saying that they received it. This time, they cc-ed the email to the teacher-in-charge of the scholarship and that they will inform us the further details at a later date.
About a week or two later after mailing them the forms, I received a letter from Heiwa Nakajima which was directly sent to my house. It contained further information on how the various monetary aids that they're sponsoring will be passed to me. There was also a request for me to send them an e-mail informing them that I've reached Japan within 3 days after reaching Japan. Also, it is compulsory to meet them at their office within a month after arriving in Japan. My advice is that you go Japan earlier than the date that Kwansei Gakuin requires you to reach and go down to the Heiwa Nakajima office and settle the meeting. As it becomes difficult to make out the time to travel down to Tokyo to meet them because of all the orientations and things that you'll need to settle after reaching Japan. It is also best to not skip any lectures for it.
