Hello,
I'm a Moroccan student and I want to pursuit my study in japan as PhD student. I intend to benefit from the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) Scholarship student for the Student Exchange.
I want to get more information about finding universities and field for study and research.
Also, I want to contact (email) foreign student who are Current PhD Student (especially Moroccan Student), to get an idea about foreign student living condition, insurance, accommodation, nouriture, Amount of money to bring with me, If the amount of the Scholarship money (155,000 yens in 2010) is enough, .... ?

:-) thank you for your reply,

P.S.: I'm 3rd year Student Engineer in Software Engineering and Systems Integration, i will get in June 2011 my Engineer degree ( 5 years after the baccalaureate ):p

For some reason I feel confident your query will shortly be answered by somebody, in a manner similar to a similar posting last year on the Monbukagakusho study guide....

Yes, i saw it, but the "Monbukagakusho Research Scholarship Prep. Guide" is not free :(

I have also been looking for preparation resources for Monbukagakusho Scholarship for some time. I think at first the official guidelines should be checked. A lot of information can be found at this site http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj0307e.html.

You can also check Monbukagakusho Scholars Organization Homepage(www.monbusho.org) for more information shared by the current scholarship holders.



;-)

thank you for your reply, i will check

Hi! :-)

I'm currently receiving Monbukagakusho scholarship, since about 3 years ago.

As far as I know, there are two ways of getting the scholarship.
1. Through the application/ examination held by the Japan embassy in your country, which I think is mentioned in one of the websites I saw below... I sat for this exam in 2003 but couldn't manage to get the scholarship. It was so competitive in my country. During that time, the exam tested the students' English language capability.
2. Through the prospecting supervisor, but I think this is only limited to few universities/ departments and it is for Master/Phd/ Research students only. Thank god, I managed to get the scholarship by this way. After I was informally accepted by the supervisor (which he informed through the email), and was about to send the formal application letters to him, he asked me whether I am interested to get Monbukagakusho scholarship, I answered yes, and he forwarded my application to the administration office. I think students have better chances of getting the scholarship this way...

Besides Monbukagakusho, some of my friends also receive scholarships from JASSO (not sure what it stands for) and a friend of one friend of mine also receives scholarship from a Japanese company (not sure which company)- & he gets more monthly stipend than us...

155000 yen is more than enough if you are single, leading a quite decent life without spending much on pubs/clubs/alchohol, even if you live in big cities like Tokyo. If you live/ study in a rural area, or choose to live in the hostel, you could even save much more money.
During my time, the university informed me how much money I needed to bring- but I can't remember how much. If I'm not mistaken it was 100000yen.

Life is much better if you know the language... Depending on your lifestyle, in Tokyo, the house rent costs around 40000-80000yen/month (you can get cheaper/ more expensive places than this), national health insurance- around 1000yen/month, food around 20000yen/month or less, other bills around 20000yen/month or less and you can spend the rest of the money to travel or buy a ticket to go home or save it or spend it on anything as you like...
If you study in small towns or live in the hostel you may be able to cut down the accommodation cost up to around 20000 yen/month and the other bills up to around 10000yen/month...

Good luck and all the best! (up) :-)

Hi. I'm interested in making a PhD in Morocco, but I will like to apply for a scholarship. At the moment I'm making a Master in Spain and I'm finishing it in September 2011. Please, if anyone can provide me some information i will be very grateful.