Korean Job Discussion Forums

[weened]

I'm going back soon and had planned on a University job but recent suggestions have led me to believe that they're the same as Hogwans. Any insight?

[gypsyfish]

I used to work at a hagwon. I worked 30 hours a week- five days a week. Got @10 (nonconsecutive) days vacation. We had nice facilities, fair (shared) housing and small classes (8-15 students).

I now work at a university. I teach 15 hours a week and have Tuesdays off this semester. I get @ 5 months paid vacation a year - two big breaks (one in the summer and one in the winter) and I work 2 hours during midterm week. Our facilities are nice and I have a nice single room. My classes are large (average 27 students, except for my elective class which has 45 people).

You do the math. Vacation is important to me, so I love the university. I have a friend who says he would never teach a class with 20 people. One man's meat ... .

[rudyflyer]

I'm with gypsyfish I too worked at a hogwon (a univ hogwon albeit) now I have a univ gig and wouldn't trade it for the world. I work 18 hours/week with Weds off, the next 2 weeks I won't work a full week because of MTs for my different majors. I also only work a half week at midterms and finals, univ festival is usually a week off both in the fall and spring. If I want to teach hogwon classes I can and I get extra pay for them. I decided to take one for 2 hours/week for various reasons. Best of all I DON'T TEACH KIDS!!!!!!!

I also get the full summer and winter breaks off. I usually will work about 3 weeks of those breaks for extra cash at a teacher training program across town, though this summer I may decide to take the whole summer off and be a beach bum in Thailand or Vietnam (though Lemon has tempted me with Malaysia) .

With that said jobs like mine are getting rarer. My last uni was a pretty good gig, not a lot of vacation (6 weeks) but you taught a variety of classes including upper level vs only freshmen I have here. However from talking to people now there the job has gotten really bad with mostly hogwon classes and horrible splits. There may be a lot of turnover there as result. Think more unis are really trying to hogwonize and make foreign faculty teach more hours for same pay.

A bad uni gig can be just as bad as a hogwon. If you have to go the hogwon route look for a univ based one. You will work fewer hours and get more vacation than a traditional hogwon and your students will be better

[weened]

Any professional qualifications for the Uni job?

[rudyflyer]

Given how tight the univ job market is becoming (there was an earlier thread on this) you almost need one of the following if you want to teach regular univ classes (this doen't apply to univ hogwons )

1) BA and a TESOL cert and a couple of years at a hogwon
2) B.Ed and some teaching experience, at least 1 year
3) MA in anything and either 1) TESOL Cert or 2) teaching experience 3) teaching cert in another field
4)MA in an English related field no teaching experience

[The Lemon]