Japanese Maritime Officer Candidate School
The first segment of LSAP-JMOCS (Japan) is a study trip to the Japanese Maritime Officer Candidate School (JMOCS) on the historic island of Eta Jima, Japan. At JMOCS, midshipmen live in school dormitories with Japanese midshipmen, observe their classes and training, and participate in cultural events including martial arts (Judo, Kendo), tea ceremony, museum visits, and day trips to Hiroshima and Miyajima. For the final segment of LSAP-Japan, midshipmen live with families of active and retired Japan Maritime Self-Defense officers. Between immersion in Japanese military and home environments, LSAP participants travel to historical and cultural points of interest in several cities such as Kyoto, Tokyo, Koyasan and Yokosuka.
Hiroshima, the site of the first military use of atomic weapons, has a large memorial park surrounding Ground Zero. Miyajima is the island home of one of Japan’s “three great vistas,” the Itsukushima Shrine, which appears to float at high tide. Koyasan is the spiritual headquarters of Buddhism in Japan. Kyoto, the historical capital of Japan, is replete with temples, shrines, and palaces of great antiquity and historical significance. Tokyo, the capital of Japan and one of the largest in the world, is home to the Imperial Palace, as well as many modern shopping districts. Yokosuka is home to the Japanese National Self-Defense Academy.
Japanese Civilian Institution Program
In LSAP-CI (Japan), midshipmen attend intensive language study courses at Coto College in Kumamoto, Japan. They are in the classroom 4-5 hours per day and are engaged in knowledge application and cultural familiarization activities at nights and on weekends. They attend class with students from non-English speaking Asian countries like China, Bangladesh, Korea, Vietnam, and so forth. Their classmates are participating in either a 12-month or 18-month program aimed at preparing non-native Japanese speakers to attend Japanese universities, colleges, technical schools or other higher education institutions.
Cultural and knowledge application activities include scheduled events such as meetings with students from the top local high school and politicians from city and prefectural councils in the area as well as less formal meetings with real people in real situations that cause them to apply their newfound language capabilities. Weekends provide a break from formal classrooms, but the learning continues with immersion visits to surrounding cities and locations of significance.