Since February, Castlegar News has been fortunate enough to have an international student from Selkirk College shadowing our reporters.
Sayaka Kuwano is an exchange student from Nagoya University of Foreign Studies in Nagoya, Japan and is volunteering with the paper as part of the Selkirk College Volunteering Seminar. Kuwano is majoring in International Development, which includes education, media and gender equality.
She’ll have to find a job next year, and though she still hasn’t decided exactly what she’d like to do, she is considering a job in media and wanted to get some experience.
“When I was a high school student, I met someone who works in media and he said that media is a good job for him because he can meet a lot of people and he can listen to various opinions,” she said. “I want to know more about media, so that’s why I wanted to work for a media company.”
So far, Kuwano has attended a number of public meetings with our reporters, including two city council meetings.
“I think it was more casual than I expected,” she said. “I think it was important for them to have such a meeting because they were discussing how Castlegar will be successful…. It was the first time I attended such a formal meeting.”
Kuwano decided to come to Selkirk so she could be in the country while continuing her studies.
“My university in Japan has an exchange program with this college and I like the countryside but Nagoya is really clouded, so I wanted to come to the countryside,” she said.
Kuwano is also taking hospitality classes at Selkirk, which she said are similar to hospitality classes she’s taken in Japan, but here she gets the Canadian perspective.