International Business + Japanese

Timans

I am thinking about doing this course in DCU,

A few things I'm wondering are:

1) Do you do Economics in the course? I love Economics and would do that but there isn't a Japanese/Economics course.

2) Would you be pretty much fluent by the end of the four years of the course?

3) Anyone here do it? Comments etc?

Thanks,

KenHy

Yes there is economics involved, see http://www.dcu.ie/registry/module_contents.php?function=4&programme=IBLJ for course details. I cant answer the rest of your questions, but you would have to spend a year in Japan, so you probably should have the opportunity to become fairly fluent.

scoey

I do this course. Just finished second year(one more exam to go...). Anyway, yeah, there's economics involved. We did economics all through first year. Not in second year though. Not sure about 4th year, but I'm pretty sure there's a decent amount of things to choose from in 4th year, economics wouldn't be my area of interest though.

3rd year is the year in Japan(yay!) and it seems to me that most people after 3rd year are capable of having a fairly decent conversation in Japanese. I'm pretty sure that after 4th year you're expected to be pretty competent, I'm not sure about "fluent" though. If you got through the degree you'd definitely be fairly good anyway.

Comments? Hmmm, the Japanese requires a good bit of effort, so make sure you're interested in it. For me, the business subjects are usually an afterthought and not much trouble, I spend most of my (study)time studying Japanese. I don't know if you know any Japanese now, but I'm pretty sure the first few weeks of the course can be fairly daunting and the class size usually halves in the first few weeks of 1st year.

I wouldn't pick it on a whim, or you'd probably end up regretting giving yourself the extra hassle, but if you're interested in spending time in Japan etc, I'd definitely recommend it. The Japanese lecturers are good teachers, and nice people. Because the class is small it feels a bit like school, with homework and such, less so in second year.

I'm pretty sure the business aspect is exactly the same as International Business and other languages in DCU.

Can't really think of much else to say. Any specific questions, just ask, I'll probably be able to answer them.

fobster

Economics modules in DCU start with "EF" which stands for economics and finance.

From doing the same EF modules as are available in 4th year of that course, I can tell you that the modules close to economics would be financial evaluation and forecasting which is an introduction to econometrics, the forecasting methods used for inflation, gdp and the like.

And there's also some utility, indifference curves etc. in the financial theory module and some economic theory in international finance such as purchasing power parity, fisher effect etc.

That's all.