My name is Isabella Yeffeth, but I like to be called Elle (エル). I grew up in Dallas, Texas, however I go to school at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. I’m a third-year Computer Science major with a Japanese minor. I chose to come to Doshisha University because I wanted to become as fluent as possible in Japanese, and to interact as much as I could with actual Japanese culture. I wanted to become as integrated as I could in a different culture and force myself to grow as much as I can within my year here in Japan. I chose to study Japanese because Japan was such a different culture from my own, and I was very fascinated by it. From pictures I could tell that Japan was stunningly beautiful, and I wanted to be able to travel freely without having to worry about the language gap. I also wanted to expand my skillset in the game design field, since that’s something I want for my future. Going abroad forces a person to grow in a way that staying in the same country really can’t do. It proves to yourself and to any potential employers that you can navigate your way through an entirely new environment and come out a better person. Living abroad for even a short time will really expand your vocabulary in a completely new language and being surrounded by this language all the time helps you pick it up much more completely and effectively than any other learning experience, especially a classroom. But not just the language, you will not be the same person than when you began.