Dante Loretta

I was really intrigued by the kanji system and how they used pictograms to build up words and concepts.

I still am, although I wish I had more time to study and refresh my skills.

And so I took Japanese.

I took a first semester Japanese to see what it was like.

It was a five credit class.

It was very intense.

Really enjoyed it.

Made a good friend, who I know AP has reached out to, who also studied Japanese, and we challenged each other and spoke to each other.

We were both in that counselor program, so we got a lot of experience speaking Japanese on a day-to-day basis, you know, at parties or out to dinner or just hanging out studying or whatever.

And so I took my four semesters.

By the time I was done with that, I had 20 credits built up in Japanese, and then I had other credits like you had to take a non-Western civilization, so I took history of Japan.

And you had to take a gender-focused study, so I took women in East Asia.

And then I ended up going for a third year of Japanese.

So by the time I had all of those, I was up to like 32 credits in Japanese.

I was like, geez, I only need four more credits to get a degree in this thing.

So let me stick around.

I took...

kanji writing for three credits.

And I can't remember what the last one was, but there was one more course that came in and allowed me to complete the Japanese degree along with the math and physics double major in the College of Science.

And so I graduated with that wonderful aspect of talent and skills in 1993.