The Japan major provides students with proficiency-based training in Japanese language at all levels, including options for study abroad and internships. The program also provides instruction in Japanese culture, literature, film, and new media both in Japanese and in English. Students’ training will ground them in the core skills of humanistic inquiry, and students have utilized this training for Japan-related work in both the United States and Japan upon graduation from UWM.

Graduates of the UWM Japanese Program have gone on to utilize their linguistic and cultural fluency in work and internships in business, government, and education and are located in Southeast Wisconsin, across the United States, and in Japan.

The importance of training graduates with fluency in Japanese language and culture has never been more crucial for the economic, diplomatic, and cultural future of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the United States generally.

• Japan is the fourth largest trading partner of the United States (U.S. Census).
• It has the third largest economy in the world.
• Japan is a crucial strategic ally of the United States in a region that is only expected to increase in importance throughout the next century. The importance of this region is highlighted by the well-publicized shift in diplomatic policy known as the “pivot” to East Asia.
• Japanese cultural impact, through film, literature, art, and new media, has an outsized global reach.