Ever been to school in Japan? Don't go.
Going to a college in U.S. means 3 things: fuck, get drunk, and play quake3. Not necessarily in that order. Then study, if you have any time left. Not in Japan. You go there to study, allright.
Now, WHAT you study is another question. No, YOU don't choose what you are going to study in college. Who does? Your parents. You go to college to learn something your parents did not learn or wish they learned. In a family of dentists, you are going to dental college whether you like it or not. You probably don't like it, you'll spend 4 years learning something you hate, hate it even more, at this point you have a couple options - you can commit suicide (mentioned later), you can go get a unrelated job that doesnt require skill, or you can just continue living in your parents house saying that you will "grow up soon" and will "become independent".
My current workplace is flooded with incompetent people who studied anything but computer-related stuff. Things like culinary schools(?), generic "business" education, etc are quite common.
Copyright notice: the content below has been copied from www.japaninfo.org/education/rekishi.htm, however that site seems to be down and this information came from google cache. This is the most informative piece on jap educational system I could find, and the tone of the story seems to match that of this site, so here it is: (note, most of highlighting is mine).
The current centralized Japanese educational system, embodied in the Ministry of Education dates back roughly 125 years when Japan began its rush to modernization. The country, in order to catch up to the West's rapid pace of industrialization, needed to create an educated body politic. This mass education would serve two purposes: to foster loyalty to the state, and give a basic education to all citizens. Gradually, this educational system would shatter the class differences that existed within Japan under its long history of feudalism. By 1907, Japan was under a compulsory six year educational system in which most people (both boys and girls) participated. In the words of Edwin O. Reischauer, "Education was regarded primarily as a tool of government, to train obedient and reliable citizens in the various skills required by a modern state." (Reischauer, p. 127) As a product of the government, the Ministry of Education avoided all the pitfalls that the West had in dealing with religious organizations involved with education. However, the new educational system would come to have its share of problems. One of the earliest ones was that soon after its start, the school system became a facility in which to train soldiers in combat skills from a young age. In the post-war era though, the problems have focused on the systems difficult entrance exams, and stringent regulations.
These entrance exams are central to the Japanese educational system. All students are required to take a high school entrance exam for the school in which they wish to matriculate. The structure is very hierarchical, with the best students going onto the best high schools and colleges while the lowest go to agricultural and technical high schools. Although the exams may seem quite fair on the surface, they test little other than a students ability to memorize lots of detailed facts. The unfortunate result is that most college graduates can't remember half of what they studied to gain entrance to the institution in the first place. Thousands of "cram-schools" or juku in Japanese exist all over the country to help students prepare for their exams. Many students attend these schools after school, during the evening on an average of two hours per session.
Although the exams are a large part of the academic curriculum, a stronger emphasis is place on preparing students to get used to living and working within a group-oriented society. Learning how to address superiors, exchange proper greetings, bow, and endure long and very formal ceremonies. Most of the sempai-kohai (senior-junior) relationship training goes on after school in the form of sports clubs supervised by the teachers. Over half the students at school end up going home just after sunset, which can be as early as 4:30 during December and as late as 6:30 during the spring months (no daylight savings in Japan). This, combined with two half-school days on Saturday, and sports events on the weekends, means Japanese students spend a significant portion of their youth in school. While their American counterparts are getting ready to go home to play with their friends, Japanese students are changing their clothes to go practice volleyball, soccer, baseball or one of the other dozens sports that are offered at school. By the time they graduate high school, Japanese students will have spent most of their waking hours among their peers, and have mastered the intricacies of politeness that will be necessary for them to function in Japanese society.
The group structure is also indirectly reinforced by the school facilities themselves. Most school building in use in Japan today were re-built after World War II in a rather Bauhausian-style, using a ferro-concrete structure, with an enclosed staircase, and lots of windows. The plain style emits a feeling that it is the people, and their actions that determine the cheerfulness of the place rather than the building itself. And since the buildings have no insulation, students and teachers both must suffer the cold winter together. This also creates a common bond between teacher and student. Classrooms are the same size, and all located off a central hallway. Students flood the hallways during the ten minute break between classes, chatting with their friends and messing around. Its quite amazing how they can bring even a dull building to life.
The Japanese school system also places a great amount of emphasis on enduring hard and difficult situations. Indeed, most of the major events: sports day, the chorus festival, and graduation ceremonies, require incredible patience and endurance. Much emphasis is given to the overall form, such as how students are moving their legs when marching, if they are lined upon a straight line, if they are all singing in unison, etc. The whole school rehearses each event many times before the actual thing takes place, in order to ensure a visually pleasant and seamless event. In the middle of all this are the students, getting moved around like pawns on a chessboard, getting scolded for not doing something fast enough or for talking when told not to.
One of the bigger events, the sports festival are really vestiges of Japan's old military focused educational system. Only today, most of the marching is taken out and its made to seem like its all for fun. Its easy to imagine the old military instructors instilling a great fighting spirit in all their students by dividing them up into 4 colored teams, and having them compete against each other. Events such as these now teach students that even though they are tired, and may want to give up they must persevere "gambaru" and give all they can give till the bitter end.
Although this intense schooling, with a major emphasis on exams, may have made sense thirty years ago, it seems somewhat ironic that one of the richest countries in the world still pushes its youth to the extreme, often times at the expense of their personal freedom and expression. Many students commit suicide every year in Japan, because they can't handle the pressures of the school system, their peers, and their teachers. This is only one of the symptoms of a larger problem within the Japanese educational system. The Ministry of Education realizes this paradox, and is pushing towards a 5-day school week that would supposedly give students more time to spend at home . So far, two Saturdays a month have been cut from the school year, and in a few years most students will only have classes Monday through Friday. Unfortunately, one Ministry directive, will not cure this dilemma. The problem is quite circular in nature. Parents, faced with obligations at their workplace, often come home late and are happy to have the educational system play baby-sitter to their children. Teachers are somewhat caught in the middle, having much more responsibility for their students than their American colleagues. Thus, as the school year becomes shorter via Ministry of Education directives, parents will likely push for schools to set up more activities for their students to participate in, thus re-creating the problem all over again. The only hope is that as schools go towards a five-day work week, Japanese companies will begin to relax the unwritten restrictions that keep their employees behind their desks after hours and on Saturdays.