Interview overview
Fumin at BCIT: Leaving Aoyama Midstream for Web Design on Purpose
A Vegas hospitality daydream, parental pressure into a Japanese information degree, then a clean break toward design—captured while he was still in BCIT’s business-track web program, before the later marketing job.
Read this as the “before” to Fumin’s graduation story. A one-month Las Vegas language stay showed culture gaps and fed an old hospitality fantasy—hotel work looked cooler than Japan’s poorly paid stereotype, and Vegas screamed hotels and casinos. High-school counselors summoned his mother over the Vegas plan; parents steered him into a Japanese university first. Information studies brought programming but little design; art interest pulled toward web design until the Japanese program felt wrong. Art schools looked expensive; overseas suddenly seemed no more irrational.
Senna’s Vancouver web blog led to a consultation that unpacked local curricula better than sparse search results. With no graduation and no Japan industry job yet, he needed internships and skills; Vancouver’s IT schools and co-op-like paths looked practical. Britain felt pricey; U.S. visas looked hard; Canadian rules, explained by Senna, felt more connected to later work. North America already felt familiar from Vegas.
Exam English was fine; speaking was not—Vegas helped, and making friends remained the real speaking gym. At BCIT, concept talk in a second language still jammed, but classmates waited; pace was survivable. Specialty content drew on university study and self-teaching, so struggle felt like preferred struggle. Local classmates sometimes blanked on content despite fluent English—proof nationality was not destiny. Business-course projects felt close to real work, which made grind worthwhile. Instructor variance annoyed him; his rule was never to let school be the whole plan—Lynda.com, Japanese web blogs, English reading, plus Frog House promo videos for the film itch.
After graduation he planned post-graduate work authorization for a year of experience, then working holiday time, keeping immigration and Japan options open. Message to fence-sitters: hesitation wastes calendar. The piece ends mid-journey—hungry, enrolled, already refusing to outsource growth to whichever instructor walked in that hour.
Photos from the interview
This page is an English overview of Frog’s Japanese interview—not a full translation. Read the original interview (Japanese)