Basic Structure of Japanese Program
Students in Japanese program generally enter in April (October admission is also available) of their first year and complete six semesters of taught courses. The final year is mainly reserved for a research project resulting in a mandatory graduation thesis.
The educational program allows students to overview diverse fields of geoscience. Students learn concepts, ideas and techniques of geoscience through a variety of course types. Students are required to complete 124 credits mainly as lectures along with field work courses, seminars, and other course types. One lecture credit represents 10 lectures, with each lecture being 75 minutes long. For each hour of class time, students are expected to complete 2.5 hours of self-study.
1st year
You revise or acquire basic knowledge and techniques common to natural sciences such as mathematics physics, chemistry, biology, and geosciences. You also take general foundation subjects, e.g., Information Literacy, and Physical Education, as mandatory.
2nd year
You choose their own balance of introductory lectures and field works offered by each geoscience field. You are required to take Statics/Basic Mathematics and Physics/Basic Chemistry for Geoscience, Geoinformation Sceience, Field Methodology in Geoscience, and Geoscience Laboratory as a basis for higher-level courses in 3rd year.
3rd year
You choose a major, Geoenvironmental Sciences or Earth Evolution Sciences. Generally, you focus on one or two geoscience lab that you are interested in, and take a set of specialized courses offered by the lab, which consists of lectures, experiments, a field work, and a seminar. Taking other geoscience lectures including those offered in the English geoscience program is also recommended.
4th year
Mainly for graduation research. You select by yourself the lab and supervisor of graduation research, and decide a topic of the research project with the professor. The discussion with professors and graduate/undergraduate students in the lab helps you to learn basic method of scientific survey, presentation, and writing thesis. A graduation thesis and the final presentation (by poster in Geoenvironmental Sciences, and oral in Earth Evolution Sciences) of your research project are mandatory.
After Graduation
After having acquired a wide and general perspective on the earth, about 60–70% of the graduates continue their studies at the graduate level. Many of them join the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba. About 20% of graduates employees of a wide range of enterprises including construction and general consulting, resource and environmental services, IT, finance, insurance, electronics, telecommunication, publishing, manufacturing industries, distribution and travel. The rest 10% of graduates become civil employees or teachers. Those who go on to graduate schools later become researchers at universities or national and private research centers.
Early Graduation
Students who have accumulated sufficient credits with a high GPA can apply for early graduation, completing the four-year course in 3.5 years.
Attending Graduate Course
Students, who have earned sufficient credits with a high GPA and intend to go on to the graduate schools of the University of Tsukuba, can apply for taking graduate courses. If allowed, the student can attend graduate courses in 4th grade. After entering the graduate school, the credits acquired in the course will be counted as graduation credits of graduate school, not of undergraduate. No extra tuition is required for the courses, but when teaching material such as textbook is neccesary, its cost should be paid by individual.
Admission
For detail of admission, please visit the following web page of University of Tsukuba.