Outstanding student to put his skills to the test in Japan

25-November-2002

Shane Lauf . . . now testing his skills in Japan

An outstanding University of Wollongong student, Shane Lauf, who has just finished 3rd year of Engineering (Telecommunications) and Arts (Advanced Japanese), which is a five-year course, has this week travelled to Japan to undertake a short-term internship through the Kanagawa Engineering Group.

The Dean of Arts, Professor Sharon Bell, and Dr Noriko Dethlefs, Co-ordinator of the Japanese section in the Faculty of Arts met representatives of the Kanagawa Group at the 10th anniversary of students going to study in Kawasaki.

Members of the group then came to visit the University and the Wollongong City Council (Kawasaki is Wollongong's sister city). Shane told News Bytes that he chose UOW because other universities considered his degree combination as far too unorthodox and also because Wollongong offered him a co-op scholarship with Fujitsu as his sponsor.

He has studied in Kagoshima (southern Japan) in 1999 as a Rotary exchange student. Shane was the national champion at the 2000 Australian Japanese Language Speech Contest open division.

He lives at Wollongong's International House where he works as a Senior Tutor with a particular focus on international students. Shane also teaches at the School of Information Technology and Computer Science as well as running a translation business.

While In Japan, Shane will work with Softem Co Ltd, a member of the Kanagawa Engineering Group, in Kawasaki as a System Engineer and also teach some English until April 2003. He then plans to study for an academic year at the University of Sophia under the JAPA550 (Graduate Diploma in Arts) program.

Shane said that most students heading to Sophia (indeed, anywhere in Japan) go to study Japanese language, and also take classes in English but as he has the language reasonably under control his plan is to take classes in their engineering, politics, law and theology faculties alongside domestic students -- in Japanese.