Aiden Sanders

    As a student who started their freshman year during covid I was unsure of what I wanted to do while in college as most classes were online at the time. Yet taking my first class with Professor Sasaki was the initial kindling that started me on my path to completing the Japanese Studies Major. The most meaningful moment of this experience for me was when I went to Osaka to study abroad for the CET Summer Program. Getting to live in shared housing with local students was an amazing experience and I believe being able to make friends with people who didn’t speak my language was the most fulfilling part of being a Japanese studies major. It also has influenced my goals for my second major in economics and how I hope to use it in the future. This summer I will be starting an internship with the Department of Commerce’s Office of Asia and Oceania to see how I can apply both my experience with Economics and Japanese in a policy context.