Established in 2000, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, popularly known as APU, is a higher education facility in Beppu, Oita Prefecture. It boasts an enrollment of over 5,500, split closely between domestic and international students, the latter of whom have come from more than 103 countries and regions as of fall 2022.

The goal of APU is to to help students to gain the power to change the world, which the university aims to achieve through classes focusing on multicultural and community exchanges, social sciences, responsible business practices and language learning, as well as sustainability. Most importantly, though, the university prepares its students for the challenges of the future through the challenges of the present by allowing them to set the courses of their own educational journeys.

“The school really lives up to APU’s official motto of ‘Shape your world,’” explained Sherly Budiman, an Indonesian student at APU’s College of International Management. “You get to choose the courses that you want to study. At APU, you start by learning basic things, such as introduction to economics, introduction to management and others, and then it kind of slowly builds up on your third year and fourth year of in-depth research on things that you would like to study further, like education in my case. You can also take seminar classes of five to 10 students. The idea for a seminar class is one professor supervises you based on their expertise, like entrepreneurship and digitalization or international management, which is what I’m taking. I’m really enjoying the opportunities and autonomy offered to students at APU.”