How do I learned Japanese

My university doesn't offer this language, and I don't want to wait until graduate school to learn it under the assumption both that I will go to graduate school and that they will offer it where I choose to go.

I'm just curious, are there any good self-study programs I could work on for a year that would allow me to be the equal of someone who studied the language for one year in high school?

Ironically, there is a study abroad program in Japan which requires some experience with the language (using the example I used above as its own example of how much) even though they do not offer classes in it.

this site has everything (almost)
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents

buy a furigana dictionary too

its pretty hard to learn without a teacher

also you need to be able to speak and hear it as often as you can