Striking a Balance Between Specialization and Broad-based General Education Courses.

Experience the Joy of Designing Your Own Education.

Kokugakuin University uses a credit system that assigns credit values to each course.

Students must earn a total of 124 credits or more to graduate.

Students are required to complete 36 credits in general education courses (26 credits for students of the Faculty of Human Development), and 64 credits in their major (74 credits for students of the Faculty of Human Development). Students are allowed to use the remaining 24 credits to design their own education as they see fit.

There are many ways that students may use these 24 credits, for example:

• Students make take more classes in their major in order to develop a higher standard of specialization.
• Students may take more general education classes in order to foster a wider perspective and good judgement which can take many factors into account.
• Students may set their sights on earning a minor by taking minor program classes, or sturdy the issues facing society through University-wide open courses
• Students may also take a balance of major courses, general education courses, University-wide open courses, and minor program courses.

Major courses are set up to deepen student understanding on the specialties of the Departments that organize each course.

The content of these courses differ greatly depending on the Department. The courses are designed to communicate the special characteristics of each Department.

Students at Kokugakuin University must take at least 64 credits (74 credits for Faculty of Human Development students) in their major as a condition for graduation.

Some major courses are open to students of other Faculties and Departments.

Required courses are courses that students must take. Students must earn the credits from these courses in order to graduate.

Required electives are courses that students must earn some amount of credits from to graduate. Students may choose which required elective courses they want to take in order to earn those credits.

Electives are courses that students may elect to take freely depending on their interests.

General education courses are courses that every student in the school must take, and which are intended to help students acquire broad-based general knowledge.

Some of the credits for these courses may be covered by transfer credits, or credits from study abroad experiences.

As the world changes in the 21st century, the identity of Kokugakuin University continues to be “a place that can comprehensively contribute to the creation and formation of Japanese culture.”

Kokugakuin University aims to be a university that can creatively communicate Japanese culture to the world.

The need and importance for general education courses is greater now than ever before.

Fostering the capability to creatively communicate Japanese culture to the world means going beyond just helping students to acquire basic academic knowledge; it means aiming for enhancements in the ability of students to apply their knowledge to a variety of situations and personally express themselves, and it means fostering positive attitudes toward understanding issues from a variety of perspectives.

The content of the courses in each Faculty, major, minor, graduate course, and in the Graduate School of Law can be confirmed by looking at their syllabi.

You can search for and view the courses you are interested in using relevant keywords.

Kokugakuin University offers courses through five faculties overseeing 13 “learning territories.”

The curriculums of each Faculty cover approximately 1,000 courses and major courses. Over 500 of those are “University-wide open courses,” which are open to all students.

Students must earn 64 credits or more (74 if they are in the Faculty of Human Development) from the major courses offered by their Faculty out of their 124 required credits in order to graduate. However, it is also possible to take “University-wide open courses” in the areas that students are interested in. In other words, it is possible for students to plan their own academic schedules by themselves in line with their own desires and creativity.

In addition, within the Minor Program, students are able to participate in 24 programs that can satisfy any student’s intellectual curiosity, including programs organized around mainly University-wide open courses in specialized areas under each Faculty or department, as well as academic programs that go beyond the structures of each Faculty or department.

Kokugakuin University has courses to satisfy every student’s free thoughts and academic desires.

The Kokugakuin Researcher Database (K-Read) allows for the search on information on researchers, research accomplishments, and so on related to each instructor at the University.

In addition, it is also possible to view outlines of each researcher’s fields and messages from the researchers on each researcher’s page within each Faculty and Department.