Name: Day in the Life of a Japanese University Student in Tokyo
Uploaded: 2025-07-18T18:20:08.000Z
Duration: 16 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This is a day in the life of a Japanese university student.

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This is Ayuka, a 21 year old university student in Tokyo and she's just waking up for school.

She starts her typical college day with a short 5 minute workout and then quickly continues on with the rest of her morning routine.

Ayuka lives alone in a ryo, a dorm off campus.

Originally from Chizuoka Prefecture, she moved to Tokyo to attend university and the dorm was the perfect choice for her to minimize her living costs.

In fact, in Japan, private university dorms typically charge around ¥20,000 to ¥30,000, $130 to $200, while national university dorms are more affordable at under ¥10,000, about $65 per month.

When Ayuka moved to Tokyo 3 years ago, it was her first time living alone and one thing she didn't enjoy was eating by herself, but after a while, she says she grew accustomed to it.

So her first job as a university student was working at a maid cafe where she was in front of many customers while wearing a fitted costume.

It ended up being a lot of pressure for her and after quitting, she ended up gaining 20 kilos, about 44 pounds.

She was eventually able to work it off with a healthy lifestyle and diet, which she's now determined to continue on in the future, probably a life lesson that she'll never forget.

In Japan, many university students are actively involved in official club activities, which are known as sakkuru.

They range from sports to cultural clubs and it's widely known that some of these groups just party together while some actually do the activity that they say they're going to do.

Either way, the clubs allow students to meet and make friends with many staying close even after graduation.

Since she lives in a dormitory nearby her school, she's able to conveniently commute by foot every day.

Ayuka is a third year mathematics major, aspiring to become a math teacher.

As a young child, she originally wanted to become a police officer, but then discovered her talent in elementary school when she realized how she could easily teach her three younger cousins.

Then in junior high, she fortunately had an inspirational math teacher who helped develop her skills and also encouraged her to follow her dreams.

And many of you know that I did a video similar to this before, but this time I wanted to do it from a completely different take.

Luckily, Ayuka should be coming shortly, so all I just have to do is wait for her to arrive.

This is Ayuka's school, Tokyo University of Science, commonly known as Rikadai.

It's one of the most prestigious private institutions in Japan.

With seven faculties and 32 departments, it stands as one of the largest private universities specializing in science and engineering in the country.

They have over 1,000 faculty members, and over 1,000 students.

It's also one of the largest universities in Japan.

It's one of the largest universities specializing in science and engineering in the country.

They have three campuses, and she goes to the Kagurazaka campus.

She also has a high school textbook for a mock class, a file folder, desk mat, charger, class files, a laptop, dried sweet potatoes for a snack, cough drops, wallet.

So you pretty much have the whole world in there.

Wow, you're so smart. Everyone must study a lot here, right?

In Japan, getting into university is considered tough, but graduating is relatively easy.

Not to say that university students don't study, but rather, entrance exams are so difficult that many spend years in cram schools preparing.

The students who fail but desperately want to get into the school, known as ronin, have no other option but to study and wait for the next year's exams.

Among those admitted, about 82% graduate within four years compared to, say, the U.S. at around 46%.

So while Ayuka is taking her test, let's explore this place a little bit.

So just walking around this campus, it's actually quite small compared to some other larger universities.

So there's not a lot that I can show you guys.

So I guess this is just an open area right next to the school.

And to be honest, I don't really know which is part of the school and which isn't because that's where the main building is where Ayuka is taking her test, just over there.

But then there's this open park area and then there's another Tokyo University of Science building right there.

So I think it's kind of like a campus that's spread into all these little buildings with houses and everything all around.

Just at the bottom floor right here, it looks like they have kind of like an advertisement panel here for maybe some housing.

So it's kind of interesting to have one-bedroom apartments here for like ¥50,000, which is about, I don't know, ¥300,000, ¥400,000.

And then over here, they have some that are like ¥30,000, which is like about $150, $200.

Pretty good deal for these one-bedroom spots.

And they also have women-only rooms that are about ¥23,000.

The school is just behind me right there.

This campus is located uniquely in Kagurazaka, a gourmet town which was once a lively geisha district.

If you do want to go eat here, then I did a video on this place a long, long time ago.

Hey, quickly, I wanted to tell you that I officially have a spot in Tokyo to sell my Paolo from Tokyo premium kaminari hot sauce.

It's a dedicated vending machine in the middle of Shibuya, right next to the Mandarake shop.

You can get my original hot sauce as well as umami ocean here.

The location address is on my website, paolofromtokyohotsauce.com.

I'll leave a link in the description of the video.

Check the find shop section of the website.

Also, as many of you know, the online shop has been sold out for a while now, but we're back in stock with a limited supply.

Get the hot sauce now before it sells out again.

Now she has a few hours before her next class, so she has lunch with her friends in the school cafeteria.

This is the Gakushoku school cafeteria, offering well-balanced meals at affordable prices, usually under 500 yen, about $3.25.

It's typically a cost-effective place for the students to grab a complete meal.

So how much do you usually spend on food?

In Japan, the average spend on food for students is 26,000 yen, about $168 a month, so she's doing a great job on saving money.

I guess they went to a convenience store.

Cool, and what do you want to do in the future?

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Day in the Life of a Japanese University Student in Tokyo

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