A subject "Study of Japan", which aims at cross-cultural experience and exchange, has been offered to intensive Japanese language trainees since the fall of 1992 at Okayama University. The author reviews its history over the past ten years. During this period of time, the number of intensive Japanese language trainees has largely decreased, and students of Japanese studies, Japan-Korea Joint Program students, EPOK and other exchange program students came to be qualified to enroll in it. Furthermore, each session of this subject has been reviewed and changed in response to the results of student evaluations carried out at the end of each semester.

Deciding what types of students should be enrolled in this subject often proves difficult because the number of applicants has been increasing, while the class capacity should be limited to 30. The author has been forced to consider adopting a new policy to permit only undergraduate students to enroll in order to keep the class at an appropriate size. "Study of Japan" had been a dependent subject of the "Intensive Japanese Language Course" for more than ten years, and it used to have only a 3-5% weighting in the IJLC. But, since the number of exchange students requiring a rigid and 100% full mark for this subject has increased, the author has decided to assign three small reports to participants in order to cope with this requirement.