For Graduating Students

Congratulations on your graduation from LaGuardia Community College with an Associate’s Degree in the Liberal Arts Japanese Option. This document gives you a quick overview of graduation and transfer options for students in the Japanese Option.

  1. Read the graduation/transfer information sheet for the Japanese Option student
    Download this one-page information sheet for graduating Japanese Option students. This document gives you an overview of the graduation and transfer process.

    JapaneseOptionOnepageTransferPlanRev06
  2. Graduation plan
    You should start considering your graduation/ transfer plan as soon as you have more than 40 cumulative credits. Please contact the program director (Tomonori Nagano) at least once before you register for your last semester. Ideally, you should graduate in the spring (i.e., June or August) but you can also graduate in the fall (i.e., December). If you graduate in the fall, you should complete all requirements in Fall Session 1 (Fall Session 2 ends in late February and will affect transferability to 4-year schools whose spring semester usually begins in early/mid February).

  3. Transfer Plans
    The Japanese Option is articulated with the East Asian Studies at Queens College (http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Academics/Degrees/DAH/CMAL/Pages/default.aspx) and all graduating students in the Option are guaranteed admission to Queens College. The Japanese Option has a new articulation agreement with Hunter College (Japanese Language and Culture) starting from Fall 2023 as well.

    There is an option for students with a GPA of 3.0 or above to transfer to the CUNY BA Program, which is housed in CUNY Graduate Center (http://cunyba.gc.cuny.edu). Currently Hunter College is actively using the CUNY BA to accept students, but any CUNY 4-year school can accept students through the CUNY BA.

    If you are interested in applying to non-CUNY schools (e.g., NYU, Columbia, Temple University Japanese campus etc), you should start planning your transfer at least one year before your expected graduation date. See LaGuardia’s Honors Student Advisory Committee (HSAC; https://www.laguardiahonors.com) for information about external transfer and scholarship opportunities.

  4. Scholarships and financial aids
    There are many different types of financial aid to support your education at LaGuardia and at a four-year institution after graduation from LaGuardia. Below is the basic category of different types of financial aid that may be available to you. See this document for more information.

    JapaneseOptionOnepageCareersScholarshipsRev01
  5. Connect with alumni
    It is a good idea to get in touch with the LaGuardia alumni in the Japaense Option and ask about their transfer experience. The alumni in the Japanese Option have shared several video-taped introduction to their transfer/graduation experience. See https://kotoba.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?page_id=200 and https://lagccml.github.io/#japanese for more information.

  6. Make an appointment with the program director
    Again, your first step is to make an appointment with the program director of the Japanese Option. Contact Prof. Tomonori Nagano (see below at the bottom of this page for contact information)