Comment from Takamasa Kurogi, a second-year student of the School of Liberal Arts, who played the major role of this event:
Due to the spread of COVID19, this World Cafe was held on the Zoom platform. It was totally different from the World Cafe’s we had before, and I was very worried if it would be a fun place for everyone to interact. However, about 30 people including teachers and students participated, making it an international event very suitable for Miyazaki International College. I think it was a good opportunity to get to know each other, especially for the international students who could not come to Japan due to the immigration restrictions, and for the first-year students who have had no chance to get along with their classmates because they have had online classes since entering school. After the event ended, we received various messages from participating students such as “I am already looking forward to the next one!!” “I had a lot of conversations with other participants. I had a very good time!”, “I enjoyed very much talking to everyone in English”. Because COVID19 is infectious, the distance between people is increasing more and more. However, since we are studying in such an international environment at MIC, I would like to continue to create opportunities for such exchanges using any useful platforms such as Zoom.