Willamette University is a strong liberal arts school that many Charles Wright students consider.  Located in Salem, Oregon, it’s just a three hours drive from home.  Willamette has an undergraduate study body of 1,800 and most classes have no more than 30 students.  At the same time, the school offers a broad array of academic, athletic and social opportunities.  All of this appealed to Tana Watanabe, a CWA student who applied to Willamette a few months ago and was accepted early into the class of 2014.  

Tana grew up in Federal Way and came to CWA in sixth grade.  She has played volleyball every year since seventh grade, making the varsity squad as a sophomore and serving as the Tarriers’ co-captain this year.  She’s involved in drama, including the One Act Festival and this year’s winter musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.  She’s a member of the Green Key club too.

Tana’s heritage is Japanese but her parents don’t speak the language, so she took advantage of CWA’s outstanding Japanese program and began studying the language in sixth grade.  She’s taking Japanese V this year, the highest level course CWA offers.  Her freshman year she went on a Winterim trip to Japan and last summer she participated in an immersion exchange program living with a Japanese family for six weeks.  “It was an interesting and eye opening experience,” she says.  “The interactions between people are less blunt and the people are quite non-confrontational.”  Tana is also involved with a Japanese youth cultural program in Seattle.  “I’m trying to reconnect with my roots,” she explains.

Tana began seriously considering her college options her junior year.  She toured schools on the East Coast during Winterim, but after carefully considering her academic interests, her strengths as an applicant, and the sort of community she hoped to find in college, she chose to apply early on to Willamette.  One of her primary reasons for doing so is the relationship between Willamette University and the Tokoyo International University of America campus across the street.  The TIUA/Willamette program brings 100 Japanese students to Oregon every year to study English and liberal arts.  Willamette and TIUA students share their cultures and learn from one another.  According to the school’s website, “Some TIU students enter Willamette as degree-seeking students, and 10 to 15 Willamette students enroll in the Japan Studies Program at TIU” in Japan.

These opportunities are particularly exciting to Tana because she wants to expand her use of Japanese outside the classroom and study abroad her junior year.  She is considering a double-major in economics and international relations, but is also interested in Willamette’s 3/2 business program which offers both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree after five years of study.  She also felt comfortable on the campus after visiting and discovering that it was “small enough to get to know everybody.”

Tana is just the sort of student Willamette is looking for, so they sent her a Leadership Application.  Instead of writing an essay, she sent in her Junior Research Project.  “My application was non-binding, but Willamette was my top realistic choice and they gave me a merit scholarship, so I’m committed,” she says.

Now that the stress of college applications is behind her, Tana is just enjoying her last few months of high school.  She’ll be in the One Act festival this spring.  She’s working with the World Refugee Organization during Winterim.  “I also look forward to doing a lot more community service now because I have more time,” she says.