Student Profile 5

Global Leaders Program (GLP): A Student Life Full of Fresh Experiences

An interview with Wataru Hagio,
Faculty of Ecnomics, third year
Member or the inaugural Global Leaders Class

Getting a Sense of the Huge Chinese Market During Our Overseas Research Trip

Since my second year here, I have been taking sixty percent of my classes in English. I didn’t have any international experience until I entered university, and so having to use English on an almost daily basis has been very stimulating and worthwhile. I took Microeconomics taught in Japanese as a freshman, but then enrolled in a Microeconomics course again the next year, this time in English, which actually also allowed me to deepen my understanding of the subject. This is one of the great things about GLP.

In my short-term overseas studies seminar, we went to Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an, where we visited several Japanese companies and international organizations, as well as the Japanese embassy in China, and had the valuable opportunity to hear what different people working there had to say. The thing that has stayed with me most is getting a real sense of what a having a market of 1.3 billion consumers means and the big possibilities it offers. For example, the country’s biggest online shopping site Taobao has more than 2 hundred million users and we heard that it’s further expanding into South-East Asia and Africa. We also had the chance to have a discussion meeting in English with students from Renmin University of China and I was impressed by their good language skills and confident manner.

Taking advantage of Hitotsubashi’s international exchange program, I am going to spend a year at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, starting this year, where I would like to improve my English, of course, and also further my studies in econometrics―one of my favourite subjects.

Stimulating environment

GLP offers great academic content but it also gives you a wonderful opportunity to meet and interact with highly motivated peers who have clear goals and ambitions for their future careers. At the same time, Hitotsubashi’s academic exchange partners are all excellent institutions and the university offers other great international-related programs too, such as month-long internships in Spain and other countries. The Global Office staff are also very kind and are always there to help us when necessary.

With other members of the inaugural Global Leaders Class