【Department of International Economics】The English seminar courses “Multinational Corporations A & B” Part 2

Part 1 of the English seminar courses “Multinational Corporations A & B” introduced a short history, purpose and contents of the courses.  The academic year 2020 encountered an unusual campus life for both faculty members and students at Toyo University because of COVID-19.  Basically, all the courses were on-line classes in the spring semester, while the courses of a small number of students were conducted via face-to-face classes in the fall semester.  Access to the libraries and the computer facilities was considerably restricted.  There were no exchange students from partner universities.  Accordingly, the Multinational Corporations courses turned into mainly reading classes, augmented by the video presentations given by the author of the textbook, instead of discussion classes.  

The threefold purpose of the courses was largely accomplished.  Many Japanese students who took the courses went to partner universities in Europe, North America, and Asia to further their studies in the English language and in other academic subjects.  One of the pioneering students who took the courses was Mr. Yusaku Kikuchi, who obtained an MBA at Oklahoma City University in the United States in 2008.  Through a video presentation shown to all first-year students in the seminar A class of 2020, Mr. Kikuchi shared his valuable life experiences gained at the two universities in Japan and the U.S. as well as in his current consultant work. Not only did students go to study abroad after taking the courses, but some students, who had already been to foreign universities, took the courses in order to maintain their fluency in English.  In the latter instance, was another student, Mr. Takafumi Nagayama, who had studied at the University of Utah.

The photos in Part 1 represent students from 15 countries who took the courses between 2015 and 2019.  In addition, before 2015 there were students from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, and Ireland, whose countries were not mentioned in Part 1.  One of the promising exchange students was Ms. Tatiana Peláez Jiménez from Canada.  After Tatiana completed her BA at Thompson Rivers University, she earned a Master of Social Entrepreneurship at Hult International Business School in 2016.  She is now a project manager at a marketing company.

With a new curriculum starting from 2021, and with the recent retirement of Professor Kurihara, the two set of courses have been re-organized into a new set of courses:  Multinational Corporations A will be taught in Japanese, and Multinational Corporations B will be taught in English.  Dr. Qizhong Yang is a new instructor of both courses.  These courses are highly recommended to motivated students!  

The following are photos of Mr. Yusaku Kikuchi, Mr. Takafumi Nagayama and Ms. Tatiana Peláez Jiménez.   Please note that permission to upload their names and photos was granted by them.