Photo courtesy of Rowan FrankIn December 2025, two DePaul students traded classrooms for the corporate world when they traveled to Osaka, Japan for a five week internship through the DePaul–Kansai Blended Mobility GLE/CO. Rowan Frank, a sixth year Japanese Studies major with a Translation Certificate, and Neim Ocampo, a fourth year Game Design major, brought years of language study into a professional setting for the first time.
Through a special blended mobility program supported by DePaul and Kansai University, their global engagement teams, and two key professors, the program pairs Global Learning Experience (GLE) coursework with on-site international internships. Prof. Nobuko Chikamatsu at DePaul and Prof. Keiko Ikeda at Kansai led a GLE in Spring 2025, as an integral part of this program. While Rowan and Neim were completing JPN344: Translation Practicum in Spring 2025, they had a chance to collaborate online with Kansai University students. This first phase of the program made their transition to Japan feel less daunting. Rowan put it simply: "My previous experiences interacting with students from Kansai University over Zoom certainly made my destination feel less foreign and unfamiliar."
Photo courtesy of Rowan FrankWith assistance from Kansai University, the students identified convenient housing and settled into their new temporary home. Scholarships through Japan’s Ministry of Education via Kansai University helped make the opportunity more accessible to the students. At Mori Kosan Co., Ltd. in downtown Osaka, the students took on web development, translation, and bilingual outreach work in the mornings, then headed to Business Japanese courses at Kansai University in the afternoons, “... talking with all the people that I did at Mori Kosan and Kansai University really helped me ease into Japan and gave me confidence to go out and do my own things while I was there.” shared Neim.
Photo courtesy of Neim OcampoThe work provided a new challenge for the students. Neim described the translation assignments as a real test: "The translations I had to do were at a different level and really tested me." Rowan noted an adjustment period around Japanese workplace culture, calling it "part of the learning process" through which his mentors helped guide him. By the end of most days, Neim said he was mentally exhausted from the internship before heading into evening classes.
Still, both students pointed to the people they met as the highlight of the entire experience. Neim said the welcoming atmosphere at Mori Kosan helped ease his nerves during the first few days, and Rowan found motivation in seeing non-native speakers around him who were remarkably fluent. "It allowed me to see possibilities I had never considered before," he said
Neim and Rowan’s experience in Japan was only the first stage of the ongoing exchange program. With the assistance of Prof. Chikamatsu and the Curriculum Internationalization team, DePaul will welcome two Kansai University students to Chicago in August 2026 for a three week internship at the Japanese American Service Committee.