Koichiro Imai

Student

“The college has a lot of international students, so I’m comfortable here.”

The environment, for Koichiro Imai, is a very personal subject. He has just joined the Student Environmental Action club on campus because he feels that something needs to be done to protect the whales. “The Japanese are catching the whales and I’m against that,” he says. “I would like to learn more about the field of ecology.”

Koichiro credits SMC instructor Ed Tarvyd for his new interest. “We talked a lot about ecology in class,” he recalls. Zoology has thus far been Koichiro’s favorite class, even though his professional goals are more in the direction of international business. “I enjoyed zoology because Ed Tarvyd is from another country, Lithuania, and he understands how I feel about studying in English and how difficult it is.”

Koichiro came to the United States from Japan three years ago and first took ESL classes at Cal State Northridge before friends referred him to SMC. “They told me that SMC had a good transfer curriculum to Cal State universities,” says Koichiro, who has set his sights on Cal State L.A. for a bachelor’s in international relations. Then he plans to return to Japan, and get a job in the medical company where his mother is currently employed.

Koichiro has adapted well to the American life style. But he misses his country and especially his girlfriend. They keep in touch with two to three letters a week, visits during school vacations and through “endless telephone calls. I spend half of my living expenses for the phone,” Koichiro admits.

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