March 16, 2014
Anjelica, 26, Daejeon, South Korea (originally from Detroit). In this day my boyfriend, Shane, has come for the weekend, and we spend the day wandering the city and enjoying each other's company.
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Well, I have been in second language education to some degree or another most of my life (immigrant family, immigrant community). I was involved in some workshops and tutoring all throughout undergrad and in grad I added teaching ESL to my curriculum and figured I'd be an ESL educator. When I was getting closer to graduating and looking for jobs, I realized that every job in America required 2+ years of teaching ESL abroad, most of them in a university. So I started looking for jobs in other countries, but many of the potential employers told me that they wouldn't provide visa sponsorship, or that they would, but I would have to pay for it. The other ADIML user who lives in Korea, Dani, told me that she had received full visa sponsorship etc for her job in Korea. So after looking into it more, I started interviewing around and ended up taking my first job in Korea in 2012.
It's definitely an awesome country, but if you don't have experience with teaching and/or TESOL I would not recommend it. Firstly, it really is a job and parents really are paying for their kids to be educated. I do know people who came here with no experience and fell in love with the job and became amazing teachers, but they had to do lots of studying and trial and error style lesson planning, and it ended up being really overwhelming for them. And secondly because the government has lots of new requirements to protect students from foreigners who just come here to party and ~discover themselves. There are, of course, jobs where you go and basically play with kids in English. But the people I know who have those jobs don't usually like them.
All that aside, though, the pay is good, the benefits are good, and depending on where you're from, it might be safer or cheaper to live in Korea. I'm from Detroit, and the cost of living is pretty much the same for me as far as food, utilities, etc. However, since I don't have to have a car, I save a few hundred a month (but I do know foreigners who have bought cars or motorbikes). Both cities that I've lived in are safer than Detroit as far as guns and drugs are concerned, but I'm not sure about assault or anything like that. I have a pension, a severance, and insurance here, which is the biggest plus. (Most foreigners do.) So it depends on where you're from.
Sorry if this comment was way longer than it should have been! I just wanted to make sure that I covered all my bases. :)
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at the end of the day, do the pros outweigh the cons? (pressure at work and saving face and shaming) is it possible for you to network in daejon/take your career to the next level? do you get to meet expat friends and forge friendships with them on an authentic level?
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It is possible to grow a career here, if you have a masters and experience. The competition for university jobs is getting steeper every year since the government is cutting funding for native speaking instructors at national universities. If you don't learn Korean, it will be harder if not impossible to progress past a certain point (of course).
I definitely have authentic friendships with other foreigners. I think a lot of that depends on the area where you live - I lived in a city of 700,000, so there were a few hundred other foreigners to meet and potentially make friends with. I have known people who lived in towns with less than 10 other foreigners. So some of it (especially when you very first arrive) is just survival friendships. But especially with the internet, it's easier to put yourself out there and meet other foreigners. And if you speak other languages, you can meet even more people.
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mates?
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I'm glad you like it so much there! I wish you a lot of good experiences and a happy (rest?)-time (:
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