Welcome! Thank you for visiting my California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) Graduation Portfolio webpage. My experience at both CSUMB and Chuo University (中央大学) in Japan as an international student, has been very interesting to say the least. This online portfolio documents my participation in the CSUMB Japanese Language and Culture BA program.
Statement of Purpose:
My father often told me stories about his time growing up in Japan. His father was a United States military official and his mother was a kind Japanese woman. He spent the majority of his childhood and teenage years in southern Tokyo and was educate on an American military base. Japanese was his first language however, he was never taught how to read or write. He and his siblings are all half Japanese (making me one quarter). As with many sons and daughters of immigrants, I was even further removed from my Japanese cultural roots than my father was from his. This is one of the primary reasons why I chose to engage in CSUMB's Japanese Language and Culture program; to get in touch with my diminished Japanese cultural heritage.
During my childhood, and even now, my father occasionally reflects upon his childhood in Japan. He has told me countless stories about Japan: the old folktales his grandmother used to tell him while she carried him on her back, the way his mom used to cook traditional Japanese food, what it was like being a teenager in Japan, and of course he tries to remember all the bad words he once knew. From his stories and the stories of my aunts (my dad has four sisters), when it came to thinking about my own identity, I knew there was something I was missing. There was a rich cultural history that I was lacking which I wanted to find out more about.
Now of course modern Japan has changed so fast that it is nothing like the Japan from my father's stories. My dad has never returned to Japan since he came to the States, one of the reasons being that it is now entirely different from the place he grew up in (I showed him on Google Maps). Since my grandmother passed when I was only an infant, my father and his siblings have stopped speaking Japanese which, unfortunately, has led them to forget the vast majority of vocabulary they used to be so familiar with. Through my studies however, I have slowly began to help my dad recover some of his Japanese most often by making him help me with homework.
Too often do college students "go through the motions" to earn degrees in fields they are only vaguely interested for the sole purpose of finding a job. My long and varied college experience has had the unintentional effect of revealing to me the shortcomings of the American primary and college educational systems. Having originally graduated from community college majoring in mathematics, upon entering CSUMB and after taking a computer programming class, I realized a degree in either of those fields would not procure a job I could see myself being happy with. I have learned that education is not a "one-size-fits-all" experience. The experience I have had at CSUMB, but mostly during my time studying abroad in Japan, has forever changed my perceptions of the world and has enriched my human experience. For me, this experience has been more than just a means to an end; it has been another step along the path less traveled.
Zach White
Statement of Purpose:
My father often told me stories about his time growing up in Japan. His father was a United States military official and his mother was a kind Japanese woman. He spent the majority of his childhood and teenage years in southern Tokyo and was educate on an American military base. Japanese was his first language however, he was never taught how to read or write. He and his siblings are all half Japanese (making me one quarter). As with many sons and daughters of immigrants, I was even further removed from my Japanese cultural roots than my father was from his. This is one of the primary reasons why I chose to engage in CSUMB's Japanese Language and Culture program; to get in touch with my diminished Japanese cultural heritage.
During my childhood, and even now, my father occasionally reflects upon his childhood in Japan. He has told me countless stories about Japan: the old folktales his grandmother used to tell him while she carried him on her back, the way his mom used to cook traditional Japanese food, what it was like being a teenager in Japan, and of course he tries to remember all the bad words he once knew. From his stories and the stories of my aunts (my dad has four sisters), when it came to thinking about my own identity, I knew there was something I was missing. There was a rich cultural history that I was lacking which I wanted to find out more about.
Now of course modern Japan has changed so fast that it is nothing like the Japan from my father's stories. My dad has never returned to Japan since he came to the States, one of the reasons being that it is now entirely different from the place he grew up in (I showed him on Google Maps). Since my grandmother passed when I was only an infant, my father and his siblings have stopped speaking Japanese which, unfortunately, has led them to forget the vast majority of vocabulary they used to be so familiar with. Through my studies however, I have slowly began to help my dad recover some of his Japanese most often by making him help me with homework.
Too often do college students "go through the motions" to earn degrees in fields they are only vaguely interested for the sole purpose of finding a job. My long and varied college experience has had the unintentional effect of revealing to me the shortcomings of the American primary and college educational systems. Having originally graduated from community college majoring in mathematics, upon entering CSUMB and after taking a computer programming class, I realized a degree in either of those fields would not procure a job I could see myself being happy with. I have learned that education is not a "one-size-fits-all" experience. The experience I have had at CSUMB, but mostly during my time studying abroad in Japan, has forever changed my perceptions of the world and has enriched my human experience. For me, this experience has been more than just a means to an end; it has been another step along the path less traveled.
Zach White
zachwhiteresume.doc | |
File Size: | 17 kb |
File Type: | doc |