Guanajuato, Gto., March 13, 2017.- With the purpose to widen and reinforce the activities of the Bilateral Agreement for Academic Exchange with Setsunan University in Japan, the Director of the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities (DCSH) of Campus Guanajuato of the University of Guanajuato (UG), Dr. César Federico Macías-Cervantes, met with Dr. Yukari Hojo.

Dr. Hojo is a tireless promoter of the Spanish programs taught at the Department of Languages from DCSH, and in the last years, thanks to her labor, a great presence of Japanese students at UG has been achieved.

Hence, the meeting between Dr. Macías-Cervantes and M. Alma Montes, DCSH's Academic Secretary, spoke about the work done and the possibilities to widen activities, among them, the participation of the Japanese youth in the research summers.

On the matter, M. Martha Wario, Academic Cooperation liaison of the DCSH, mentioned in an interview that Dr. Hojo is very interested in her students to participate in the Research Summer, so they can have both the experience of improving the Spanish language, as well as working in a specific topic.

Dr. Macías-Cervantes also highlighted the importance of beginning collaborative works between professors from both universities.

M. Wario informed that the agreement with the Japanese institution goes back 20 years, and 80% of the cases, the young come to study Spanish, but around five years ago, they began studying economy and international trade, among others.

Dr. Hojo pretends to promote even more the participation of the students and the purpose of her visit was to research how the participation would be like and its implications in the summer courses, but not only focused in studying Spanish, but research.

The Japanese professor encourages her students to participate in stays in companies, since Japan has a lot of industry in Guanajuato, and particularly, in the Internal Harbor, so they'll soon seek to establish professional stays.

In fact, M. Wario revealed that a few months ago, there is presence of Japanese students –from other universities—in Japanese companies in the state, which Dr. Hojo seeks to take advantage for Setsunan University. She mentioned that currently, there are nine Japanese students in the Spanish program in the Department of Languages, although the average is six.

She also acknowledged the interest of students of Guanajuato to make exchanges to Japan, however, there are limits as having a required degree in Japanese, for which the students must prepare at least two years, but encouraged correctly, it is possible.

Currently, UG has agreements with more than nine Japanese universities, among them Kyoto, Shiga, Meiji, Tokyo Foreign Studies, Nagaoka and recently, with Hiroshima University.

To conclude, she commented that the enrollment of the Japanese language at UG's Department of Languages is around 200 students.