At the end of 2022, the University of Tsukuba offered a student exchange program with our university KazNU named after Al-Farabi. Already at the beginning of 2023, the results were announced - 25 students were selected. Two people were selected from the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology - Evgeniya Tyapkina and Kamilya Khalikova. Let us share our story. Let's start, of course, with a description of the university itself.

Tsukuba University is a national university located in the city of Tsukuba in the south of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The university consists of 28 clusters of colleges and schools, in which 16 thousand 586 students and 4 thousand 601 teachers and staff study. Tsukuba's main campus covers an area of 258 hectares, making it the second largest campus in Japan.

Within the framework of the "Campus within Campus" project aimed at increasing the mobility of students and teachers of the university, from March 1 to August 31, 2023, students of the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology were trained at the University of Tsukuba. The following disciplines were studied: Technology of food processes, Technology of animal cell cultivation, Metabolic and Physiological Chemistry I, Clinical Pharmacology, Plant Physiology, Animal Physiology, Practical Plant Biotechnology.

We were welcomed very warmly at the university, allocated a dormitory and a scholarship, and also assigned a curator who helped us with all the questions that arose. The training itself was very interesting; the teachers were able to find an approach to students and made the study of their subjects fascinating. Almost 6 months flew by unnoticed, but it will always remain in my memory as a unique experience of cultural and academic exchange. To all students who want to try exchange programs, but for some reason doubt or are not sure of themselves, I want to say - try it out! This is much more real, much more feasible than it might seem at first glance. None of our 25 students could imagine Japan in a dream before, but after you realize that you are capable of this, the borders of the world open up, and you realize that you are capable of much more.