When people ask students where they want to go after Valencia, most would say something like UCF, or Florida State, maybe even another university in the Southern United States. It is rare however, to hear when someone mentions that they are aiming to go to Yale in Singapore. One such student is Kenta Kaneda, a Japanese international student.

Kaneda moved to the United States as an international student to study communications last year at a university in the state of Washington. He later moved to Florida where he now attends Valencia in the hopes of attending University of Florida in the near future. There, he hopes to study business marketing with a minor in psychology.

“I hope to work for Google someday. My job has to be global. I can’t be stuck in one place,” said Kaneda about his ultimate career goals.

Like many international students, Kaneda came to the United States to learn English as well as experience American culture.

“I was learning English,” Kaneda said. “English education system in Japan wasn’t really good.  We pretty much just focused on writing and listening, we don’t really do speaking.”

Kaneda also experienced many cultural differences when he arrived in the United States.

“Americans are more open and expressive.” said Kaneda. “In Japan, we respect the silent ‘a’ lot.  Americans are more expressive and do express their feelings but we don’t in Japan. I can talk about myself a lot more since I came here.”

When asked why Singapore, Kaneda said, “People in Japan are getting old, and our birth rate is declining so badly. In 30 years almost 50 percent of the population will be over 65 years old. So we will need people from different countries.

“I feel that Singapore is the most vast country in Asia. I thought the connection between Japan and Singapore is going to be key.  They speak English and they have a Yale University as well. I plan to wait until after I get my bachelors because I cannot transfer any of my credits and I would have to start over as a freshman.”

Whether it be his dreams of going to Yale in Singapore, or his journey from Japan, through the United States and onto Google, Kenta Kaneda is a great example of the unique international flavor of Valencia students.