国際プロジェクト実習　【アメリカ】
University of California, San Diego
Xiao Zhang　[D3]
(Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Department of Interdisciplinary Information Studies)

　
As I didn’t use any existing projects or connections in Japan, I started the application process over 9 months before departure. From 2014.12 to 2015.4, I started to search for universities all over the world and mainly investigated if they have the major related to mine and and faculty who does related research. Then the second criterion was if universities or certain departments have the special program that allows foreign students to visit and study for several months with students’ own fund. Then, I asked faculties that if they have time and energy to be my sponsor. Every condition must be satisfied. Finally, I found UCSD, which ranks quite high in the world as a top level university with excellent academic research, and I was so fortunate to be accepted by Professor Hallin, who is a distinguished scholar in Political Science and his research concerns journalism, political communication, and the comparative analysis of media systems. Most recently, Hallin has been doing research on health and medical reporting and the mediatization of health and medicine, which is a field very close to my own research. Basically, my research is about how Chinese newspapers have reported on GMO issue, especially paying attention to the information sources—who are playing roles and how they compete and cooperate (coproduction of news) to highlight their opinions to take over more limited media attention, and why; how the case of China is unique in debates about GMO in the world. Pro. Hallin pointed out some theory deficiency and possible directions, inspired me on some issues, and also details of methods. In terms of what I gained from this international project, I think they are knowledge and resources. First of all, knowledge. Talking with my supervisor, attending meetings and courses in UCSD, of course I gained some new ideas or thoughts about research. Second, resources, including academic resources and human resources. Scholars and students I met at school and in conferences and my friends there are great treasure.
Besides the difficulties finding a sponsor, another big challenge might be finding an ideal apartment and good roommates before you go to a totally strange place. But there is much information that you can use, for example, homepage of foreign students association there or Facebook. Try to know what resources are available for you. For example, if you are a visiting scholar who has a J1 visa, you probably don’t have access to separate room and free shuttle ride, and hard to audit courses. One more thing is we have to buy health insurance ourselves. Insurance bought in Japan was unacceptable so I finally joined in a basic health insurance plan in US. Overall, try to gather much information about this from students who are already there and join in a plan early. If you were a foreign student studies in Japan, you must feel the information below is useful. Some legal procedures you may have to deal with before you go– health insurance in Japan and residence ID, which is closely related to your tax responsibility. If you will be absent for a long time, like 5 months, canceling your residence in Japan would be beneficial. In addition, all kinds of bills and exchange for local currency better all get done in advance.