I forgot—

Before we start this video, I wanted to say thank you

to everyone who checked out my work vlog that

was posted while I was actually filming the video that you're about to watch.

I know! x 5

A lot of you guys are like, "Shut up already and give us the answer."

"Why are you in Japan?"

"What's your job? What are you even doing over there?"

I know—

If you are one of the wonderful new faces who decided to swing by—

thank you—you probably haven't noticed that I already made

a job update video before,

and you probably haven't seen my Instagram stories where I've mentioned

what it is that I do. Anyways,

I'm bringing my local legal expert—

my lawyer—

who's going to sit down and explain my job and my Visa situation and how that all worked out.

All of that in a new video, but today specifically

I wanted to talk about one of the steps I forgot to mention.

So, sending you back in time to the video that I filmed before

where you're going to see more of this shadow.

3, 2, 1. Go!

One of the most common questions I get is

how did I actually come to Japan?

How did I actually start school here?

(How did I) go through the application?

Essays?

All the hurdles. I just didn't even talk about it.

I was just like, "Yeah, I'm here guys. Suck it."

But that's not good enough.

If you guys have been watching me on Instagram, especially Instagram stories,

you probably know that I recently got to do this really cool experience in

a place called Matsudo.

It's technically in Shiba,

but it's really, like, a suburb near Akihabara

and Ueno and all your favorite places.

I stayed in a really cool Airbnb, I got to try on samurai armor,

Tokyo. This was supposed to be Edo.

and visited this guy who had this, like, massive beard.

It was called Tiny Kitchen, but it was like this guy and his beard

just serving you food you never even thought would taste good.

And it did!

So when I was in Matsudo, I was walking under the train tracks,

and noticed there was this concept art.

It was a foreign resident who was staying in Matsudo during an artist in residency program

doing art for the city.

And the thing is, I've known about the Paradise Air program for

about six, seven years or so?

I once made this website that got hacked and burned and destroyed, but

I just researched all the scholarships that I wanted

and put them into a database and put them online so people could

search for scholarships and match them to their life situation.

One of the types of scholarships that was really popular

on that website was the artist in residency programs.

People didn't realize that you don't have to do a formal "study abroad"

to study abroad.

I walked down this tunnel and was like, "Oh my god! Wait, this is that Matsudo?"

Seeing Paradise Air reminded me again.

There are so many opportunities to live in a little neighborhood

and do whatever it is that you want abroad in Japan—

doesn't even have to be Japan.

Literally just do what you do

for little to sometimes usually virtually no money.

And it bothered me.

So many people don't know what these opportunities are

and when they do know, it's too late.

Maybe you're too old for a formal study abroad program.

You didn't go to the right type of college, or you didn't go to college, or

you didn't realize that your portfolio meant something,

or whatever it may be. So,

today I wanted to just really quickly chat—we got our laptops out—

we're just chatting.

Open your laptops.

I just wanted to share kind of a tip of how I actually found these opportunities

that made my life better.

These are tips on how to get yourself some new ideas

whether you're an adult, working adult, current student, university student, high school student, etc.

We're learning how to fish today.

If you are a student, you are affiliated to a school that has a lot more resources

and research behind them than you do.

Your career center, shoot them an email.

A department head, if there's an Asian Studies or Japanese Studies, or something like that.

Go talk to these people first, and ask them if there's something for you.

While you're at it, don't forget to also go check out the library.

I get a lot of beginner questions asking where to start with Japanese.

Don't spend any money to start.

Definitely learn hiragana, katakana, and then

swing down to your school library or your local library

and see if they have any Japanese books.

If they don't, order them.

Take advantage of that—the shadows are at it again.

When to start looking for scholarships.

For short-term programs, anything from a few months all the way up to a year,

you want to start looking somewhere about half a year to a year in advance.

If you're looking at long-term programs

next year, you want to start thinking about and moving on it now.

It's too late for this year's summer.

When you're trying to find programs to take you abroad for cheap and or free,

you want to start looking half a year to a year in advance.

What to look for. I'm using the word "scholarships" broadly,

but words like, obviously, "scholarships"

but we also have "funds", "fellowships", "research", "grants", etc.

These are the types of words you want to use in a Google search.

It's not always going to be called a scholarship,

it may be a grant.

Language school programs and scholarships to go to language school for free.

Listen up!

There are a few occasional funds, grants, scholarships,

and contests to help fund formal language school programs.

Language schools in general are usually privately funded.

That being said, there are still opportunities to do a language school program

without having to google the word "language school".

For example, things like language intensive programs.

If you are Australian, looking for things like the Hamer scholarship.

If you are American, the CLS program.

There are so many cities across Japan that have a "sister school"

or a "sister city" somewhere out in the world.

For example the city that I just visited, Matsudo,

is sister cities with Whitehorse in Australia.

Looking for actual language schools in your country.

For example, when I was in New York, I used to go to the Tenri Cultural Institute at least one or two times a week.

And they had a sister program here in Japan

with their own specific language school program, but it's not going to come up in a normal Google search

if you don't go in through kind of the sister city angle.

If you are from the EU, you may already be familiar with the Vulcanus program.

If you have technical or engineering type skills,

this is something where you are basically aiming towards

an internship, but there is a language-intensive training program

before you're allowed to do that part.

So it's a language school program within a larger program,

but it wouldn't come up if you searched

"language school Japan scholarship".

You have to start getting creative.

So, the first thing you need to do,

is tell everybody.

If you're trying to study abroad, if you're trying to just live abroad,

if you're trying to just try it for a little bit, whatever it is that you're trying to do,

know what it is and tell people that.

Tell your favorite teacher, school career center, piano teacher, your department head,

favorite teacher, personal circle, your church, your synagogue,

your friends. Literally tell any people,

especially associations.

Googling and all that jazz is great,

but your search will go so much faster

if there are many more people with their ear to the ground.

Some people hear opportunities about Japan, and

they'll just think to tell you just because they knew that you were interested.

Check your consulate.

Another one is the Japan Foundation.

You know, the guys who send out your favorite test every year.

They have specific scholarships and opportunities in their regions sometimes.

You have to let them know that you exist.

This worked incredibly well for me because

the first two times I came to Japan on a scholarship.

The CLS (Critical Language Scholarship) scholarship, and the other one was through the Freeman Foundation.

I'd never even googled for (them). I didn't even know they existed.

One of my best friends was trying to apply to the Turkish program.

That was the first year that CLS even existed, and that gave me that advantage because

so few people actually knew about it, and there was such less competition.

When you figure out what it is that you want to do,

and you tell everybody about it,

you annoy them with it, you'll find that that grapevine starts to work for you.

People start to give you information that can help you get your goals done faster,

and it gets you ahead of the curve.

#2—this is a techy tip, kinda hack type of thing—

is Google Alerts.

Setting up a Google Alert is one of the things that can expand that grapevine

so you don't have to keep googling all the time.

"Japan scholarship"

"Graduate degree Japan"

"American" "US"

"Japan adult linguistics"

Whatever my major was, I put in a whole list of different Google Alerts,

set it that every day if there was any new hits with something about that,

to send it directly to me via email.

Then in Gmail, I had a special folder for Japan Google Alerts,

and a filter so that every time a Google Alert came in through my email,

it would automatically filter and land in that folder,

so all I had to every morning, check my emails, check the news,

check the weather, check my Google Alerts.

Am I going to Japan tomorrow? Maybe.

Little hack that kept me kind of above the curve.

Doing that makes sure that you don't miss deadlines.

There's nothing worse than finding out there's this perfect scholarship,

but you missed the deadline by like two weeks.

I hate that.

Google Alerts, set them up,

put them in a folder, or don't.

Keep on top of new opportunities so that you don't miss them—this year.

So the keywords, the search, what to google.

If you search Japan scholarship, or Japanese scholarship,

or language school scholarship,

you're not really going to find anything.

You have to figure out ways to narrow it down

by figuring out what is special about you.

What is your niche? You got to hone it, and you got to own it.

And that's going to help you find more specific scholarships and more opportunities.

First of all, if you're a student, start with your school name.

For me, I went to William and Mary

checking for William and Mary scholarship abroad.

Your major. "Math abroad", "Graphic design scholarship abroad".

You'll start to find that a lot of scholarships don't say "Japan" in the name

but they just say "study abroad" or a certain type of skillset.

But sometimes you can apply those scholarships anywhere.

The other things that make really great niche search terms are, for example,

your ethnicity, your income, your orientation

your city, your hobbies, your portfolios, your skillset, your job.

"Dance grant Asia"

"Art program Japan"

"Engineering scholarship abroad"

Try to find these different combinations of words that make

niche profiles of who you are because there are some that are going to be Japan specific,

and some of them aren't.

"French citizen"

"US citizen"

UK, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Brazil, EU.

"Country name abroad fellowship"

or scholarship.

Design scholarships, being a woman opens you up to a lot of scholarships.

Women in design, women in teaching.

This is how I found some of my favorite scholarships. For example, the FEA—the Fund for Education Abroad.

The GRIT Scholarships. These are for nontraditional types of study abroad, so