Hida and other members of MSU Japan Club sat watching the news and YouTube clips of the damage caused by the disaster. The clips were so terrifying the group decided to take action — they set up tables and sold bracelets in the International Center and managed to raise about $10,000 to send to Japan.

“It is nothing compared to actually going to the area to volunteer and do whatever they need,” Hida said. “But it does make us feel we are doing something.”

Associate professor of Japanese history Ethan Segal — who has been conducting research in the northern, most damaged part of Japan — said a handful of buildings still remain in the water, and the country is in fear of energy shortages after losing the nuclear power plant. But Segal said most of the country is overcoming the disaster fairly well, and students who want to study abroad in cities such as Tokyo should do so.

“A lot more work needs to be done,” Segal said of the process of rebuilding parts of Japan. “But in a couple of years, hopefully things are back to normal.”

Segal said the country has been suffering economically, as it is costly to rebuild some damaged communities. Some officials do not support rebuilding because they are worried another disaster will occur in the near future, he said.

Peter Briggs, director of MSU’s Office for International Students and Scholars, or OISS, said the people of Japan are community-oriented, and after the disaster last year, many Japanese students struggled to function normally because they feared for their families and friends back home.

The OISS encouraged students to visit the Counseling Center, where support groups were set up to help students cope.

Briggs said professors and students supported each other through the grieving process, both by donating money and motivating them to continue their education, despite their losses.

“People come forward in helpful ways,” Briggs said. “You can wallow in disaster, or you can be inspired by all of the people who came out and helped.”

The MSU community helped more than Japanese students living in East Lansing. Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Gregg Howe also hosted Japanese scientist Masaru Nakata in his lab in the summer of 2011 after Nakata’s lab was damaged by the quake.

Howe and Nakata were able to collaborate their research, and Howe said he is still in contact with scientists in Japan.

“We made a collaboration that we wouldn’t have made otherwise, so to me that is a very positive outcome of what was otherwise a very tragic situation,” Howe said.