Why I decided to teach ESL in Korea

Sexy Korean men...was not on my list of reasons for moving to Korea.  Not that I didn't find Korean men attractive; I just already happened to be in a relationship.  So, in fact, the man situation in my life was actually working against my move.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sometime in 2010 I realized that job hunting in California without a car as a fresh liberal arts college grad was not my ticket to a successful career.  (On a related note, my plan to take Hollywood by storm through never finding an agent or going to an audition was not my ticket to fame and glory.) 

I was also getting antsy. As in, location antsy.  As in, I no longer desired to live in America. So I sat in my room playing bellydancing music and reminiscing about my childhood.  I became overly enthusiastic about meeting Middle Eastern shop owners, and paid frequent visits to my fellow TCK friend where we cooked Ethiopian food and reminisced about being evacuated from civil wars and fires.  (OK, there was only one civil war, and the fire was in California.  Still.) 

The antsy thing thing happens to me every few years and I blame it on my childhood.  And also my personality.  Basically on anything that allows me to pass on the responsibility for my psychological demerits.

Anyways, my original post-graduate plan had been to get a job in a writing field.  Or possibly join the Peace Corps.  Grad school also sounded like a good idea - maybe a bit of international relations to ease an entrance into NGO or State Department work.  Grad school also sounded good because I'm an excellent test taker.  (It's probably my strongest skill.  So, if I'm going by pure skillset, I should get into the perpetual student field of academia.)

I'm not sure when Korea came up in a list of life possibilities, but it was hardly a surprising idea – I had a college friend who was currently teaching ESL in Korea, and I was also interested in the Korean culture.  L.A. has a strong Korean-American community, I had a Korean-American roommate (who was and is a superstar), and I was working at a tutoring center which was basically an Americanized hagwon filled with Asian-American students.   

Teaching in Korea is an attractive prospect to recent college grads for quite a few reasons.

1) It's a guaranteed full time job in an otherwise questionable economy.
2) It pays pretty well, especially when perks are taken into consideration - Free roundtrip airfare, free housing, low/no taxes, subsidized healthcare.
3) It's an opportunity to travel and live overseas.
4) It's a better resume filler than the part-time/waitressing work that many grads do while looking for a job.
5) It's fun.  (Subjective, yes.)  You get to hang out with kids, make international friends, eat weird food, and shake your world up.

 

My third graders.

So, with these reasons in mind, two of my roommates and I started discussing the possibility of teaching ESL in Korea.  (These roommates also happened to be my best friends, which is a potentially wondrous and disastrous thing – mixing friendship with rooming – but that's for another post that I'll never write.)

I moved to Sweden.  Roommate #1 moved to DC to work on the Hill, and roommate #2 got a full time job and engaged.  They both had decided against the idea (in favor of becoming adults), but it still sounded attractive to me, especially when I realized that Sweden involved nine months of icy darkness.  So I convinced my newly minted communications grad brother (if ever a major needs a job, it's communications), to join me, and he and his then girlfriend began the application process with me.

He is now teaching with Americorps, but his (ex) girlfriend did make it over and is living in Busan.
Her blog title is much better than mine.

And that's my story.  My reasons are pretty typical - a love of traveling, an enjoyment of working with kids, a desire to save money while thinking about my next plans, and an interest in Korea. 

I would definitely say that if you don't like kids or are pretty inflexible, teaching ESL here isn't the best idea for you.  OK, and no-one is going to describe themselves as inflexible, so let me put it like this: if the idea of having work/classes/meetings constantly changed on you at the last minute makes you feel sick to your stomach, Korea isn't for you.  Really.

Also, if you have a serious bf/gf, go the Hardy Boys route and knock them out with chloroform and take them with you.  Long Distance sucks.

(No, Frank and Joe never chloroformed anyone, but everybody they came across did.  I knew that word at a very young age.  Thanks Franklin Dixon/ghost writer.)

Posted in: choosing korea, ESL Korea 2012, ESL teaching, GEPIK, My Personal Experience, why I came to Korea