AKITA, JAPAN — Takuya Niiyama, a sophomore at Akita International University, dreams of becoming an international tourism operator promoting the northern Japanese prefecture of Akita, leveraging his hard-earned language skills and a network of international students he befriended on campus.

Mr. Niiyama, who is from Akita, hopes that the university’s mandated one-year overseas exchange program will help him achieve his goal.

“I need to acquire solid English skills,” he said. “And I knew that an ordinary Japanese university would not prep me for that.”

As Japanese schools intensify efforts to globalize their campuses, Akita International University seems well on its way toward internationalization, with foreign exchange students arriving from more than 50 institutions from around the world.