We are pleased to provide you with the seventh in a series of blog posts from our 2017 Global Student Ambassadors.  This week, we highlight the Japan Summer Program in Sustainable Development program, a collaborative study abroad program with Tokyo Tech that offers ten weeks of focused study in one of the world’s most fascinating and important countries. Students explored the broad issues of sustainable development with a particular focus on the challenges of sustainable urbanization in large cities as well as rural towns.  Georgia Tech students had the opportunity to work together with Tokyo Tech students in multidisciplinary, cross-cultural teams tasked with devising solutions to real-world sustainability and community development problems.  One of our Global Student Ambassadors for this program, Yoko (Sarah) Nakama, writes about her experiences.

Sustainable Development in Japan

As an international student from Japan at Georgia Tech, I wondered how traveling with Georgia Tech 's Japan Summer Program in Sustainable Development would help me rediscover my home country.  The program brought me to areas outside of Tokyo and Osaka that I simply never thought to visit, including a "rural town" of Ogaki and the scenic islands of Shikoku.  The course lectures featured diverse topics: JICA's efforts to develop struggling countries, international and local collaborations to build large infrastructure as solutions, the current state of sustainability in Tokyo and Atlanta, and asset based solutions.  This photo journal documents and explores these topics from a perspective already dipped in Japanese culture and sprinkled with Atlanta's way of life!

This spring, SLS launched its Global Student Ambassador Program, partnering with seven Summer 2017 Study Abroad programs at Georgia Tech: France LBAT, Germany LBAT, Spain LBAT, Leadership for Social Good (Eastern Europe), Design Develop Build Program (Ghana), Japan Summer Program in Sustainable Development, and Sustainable Transportation Abroad (Netherlands).  The Global Student Ambassador Program is designed to provide students with the opportunity to meet each other and learn cross cultural perspectives on sustainable communities and share their experiences with other students.  Interested in learning more?  Attend the Study Abroad Fair on October 3rd (10am - 2pm, Student Center Ballroom) and come here from our Global Student Ambassadors as they share their experiences on October 5th (11am - 2pm, Clough Lounge (Clough 205)).

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