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aaaronr
Joined: 08 Nov 2008
Posts: 82
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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:40 pm Post subject: Wall Street Institute-Shanghai |
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Hello,
Has anyone worked here? I also want to know about cost of living in Shanghai. The job pays about $1800USD/mo. What is the quality of life in Shanghai for an ESL teacher on this pay?
Thanks,
Aaron |
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Alien abductee
Joined: 08 Jun 2014
Posts: 527
Location: Kuala Lumpur
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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Does your job offer include housing or a housing allowance? If the answer is no then you'll be spending a fair chunk of your salary on a place to live.
Accommodation aside, the quality of like you'll enjoy will depend mostly on your lifestyle. You can easily blow through $1800 a month if you're clueless on how to shop and budget and like to go out eating and partying at bars and expensive restaurants. For other people $1800 will be fine. |
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jimpellow
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 913
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:02 am Post subject: |
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I interviewed with them and kept getting put on hold to start for one excuse or another so took another position.
Very professional by Chinese school standards with an adult affluent cliental. You are expected to be the same or shown the door very quickly as is the word in forums and on the street. When I interviewed you were expected to work 4 full days and 2 half days. Work is pretty much pre-prapared solid classes and English Corners.
Housing has not typically been provided. As their schools are located in business hubs, housing is too costly to live close by.
They have a very high turnover so that should tell you something is amiss somewhere. Considering how costly Shanghai is, I would recommend against it unless you wanted to network with Chinese Shanghai VIPs to transition into the business World.
Their schools pay the same, so a position in Qingdao with them as an example would be better as the cost of living is much lower. |
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Simon in Suzhou
Joined: 09 Aug 2011
Posts: 404
Location: GZ
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| jimpellow wrote: |
Considering how costly Shanghai is, I would recommend against it unless you wanted to network with Chinese Shanghai VIPs to transition into the business World.
Their schools pay the same, so a position in Qingdao with them as an example would be better as the cost of living is much lower. |
What Jimpello said. With Wall Street's workload, Shanghai is not the place to live and save money. As well, the happiness of the teachers at Wall Street seems to depend a lot on who their manager is at the time. Managers are often rotated, and each city has a manager whose job is to get rid of people (i.e. make life so miserable that people quit). Overall a pretty solid place to work, but I have seem them pull some nasty passive-aggressive stuff towards teachers they don't like (like transferring them to a branch an hour away from their apartment, etc.). I know teachers who like Wall Street, but for the workload (not much time to make money on the side) and no apartment, the salary is not really that great. |
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Larry Legend
Joined: 12 May 2014
Posts: 172
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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| I live in Shanghai now and last year I lived in a very small city where I was the only foreigner. Aside from paying for an apartment (which I never have personally), the cost of living thing is really overrated. I'm saving 30 grand this year. It's quite easy to live off 100 rmb a day if you stay away from bars of course. |
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MisterButtkins
Joined: 03 Oct 2009
Posts: 1221
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 7:24 am Post subject: |
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| Larry Legend wrote: |
| I live in Shanghai now and last year I lived in a very small city where I was the only foreigner. Aside from paying for an apartment (which I never have personally), the cost of living thing is really overrated. I'm saving 30 grand this year. It's quite easy to live off 100 rmb a day if you stay away from bars of course. |
I'm in Beijing and also would say 100 RMB a day is more than enough, on average. Even though prices here are higher, it's hard to spend more than 100RMB on a typical day if you don't do anything special. Of course I have coworkers who make 20k a month, get a free apartment, and still complain about needing more money. How? I have no idea.
I will say that some foreigners never quite seem to figure out that foreign products are luxury products here, and hence buying them every single day is a bit silly. Then there's the foreigners who eat at a big restaurant every night and act like I'm ridiculous for telling them this isn't normal. (who in your home country ate at a restaurant every single night?) Also, there's the people who buy a coffee from Starbucks every single morning. 30 yuan each (ie, more than I spend on groceries).
Really though, these people seem like they'd be having money problems regardless of where they lived or how much they made.
As for the OP, the offer seems low if they don't provide housing. I'm working less than people at Wall Street, don't work weekends, get a free apartment, and make slightly more than that. I'm in Beijing, so prices and stuff are comparable. |
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Hatcher
Joined: 20 Mar 2008
Posts: 602
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:43 am Post subject: |
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| Does WSE hire pt? |
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topshop
Joined: 29 Feb 2012
Posts: 29
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:19 am Post subject: Wall Street Shanghai |
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| It seems that you have to pay three months rent up front if you take a job with them. That would be around 2,000 usd plus your airfare to get there and live for at least a month before you get paid. I think an outlay of 5,000 usd would be needed for Shanghai. Seems a lot for a one year contract. |
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Simon in Suzhou
Joined: 09 Aug 2011
Posts: 404
Location: GZ
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Larry Legend wrote: |
| I live in Shanghai now and last year I lived in a very small city where I was the only foreigner. Aside from paying for an apartment (which I never have personally), the cost of living thing is really overrated. I'm saving 30 grand this year. It's quite easy to live off 100 rmb a day if you stay away from bars of course. |
Yes, but pertinent to this topic, Wall Street DOES NOT provide an apartment. Thus the EXPENSE of living in central Shanghai! |
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Larry Legend
Joined: 12 May 2014
Posts: 172
Location: China
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Simon in Suzhou wrote: |
| Larry Legend wrote: |
| I live in Shanghai now and last year I lived in a very small city where I was the only foreigner. Aside from paying for an apartment (which I never have personally), the cost of living thing is really overrated. I'm saving 30 grand this year. It's quite easy to live off 100 rmb a day if you stay away from bars of course. |
Yes, but pertinent to this topic, Wall Street DOES NOT provide an apartment. Thus the EXPENSE of living in central Shanghai! |
ahh...my apologies. |
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thechangling
Joined: 11 Apr 2013
Posts: 276
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 7:32 am Post subject: |
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| jimpellow wrote: |
I interviewed with them and kept getting put on hold to start for one excuse or another so took another position.
Very professional by Chinese school standards with an adult affluent cliental. You are expected to be the same or shown the door very quickly as is the word in forums and on the street. When I interviewed you were expected to work 4 full days and 2 half days. Work is pretty much pre-prapared solid classes and English Corners.
Housing has not typically been provided. As their schools are located in business hubs, housing is too costly to live close by.
They have a very high turnover so that should tell you something is amiss somewhere. Considering how costly Shanghai is, I would recommend against it unless you wanted to network with Chinese Shanghai VIPs to transition into the business World.
Their schools pay the same, so a position in Qingdao with them as an example would be better as the cost of living is much lower. |
I've noticed that they are almost always advertising on this site (and how many others) for teachers which makes me very suspicious about their treatment of teachers hence their high turnover rate. |
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golsa
Joined: 20 Nov 2011
Posts: 185
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| As best I know, all of the Chinese chains have a high turn over rate for foreign teachers. I worked for a clone of WSI and routinely had to do 1-2 extra classes per day (that's 6-8 hours in a classroom) and frequently worked on one or both of my days off. I once did 3 weeks of 7-8 one hour classes a day for three weeks. |
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Janiny
Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 199
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 3:12 am Post subject: |
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I have no idea if this is true of Wall Street Shanghai, but I know in other places - not even in China- that some schools -some of them Wall Streets- basically have one or more of the class room walls floor-to-ceiling glass. I consider this to be zoo teaching. I dislike being on public display as I work. It takes energy enough to maintain the proper image and mood for the students. I don't want to have to think about mere passersby as well.
So I suggest you find out in advance whether whichever school you may work up has display case classrooms. |
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jimpellow
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 913
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 9:27 am Post subject: |
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| The Wall Streets in Shanghai put you on display, as do the Webs and the the other knock-offs. Usually the offices are near the front where you are also on display. Part of the business model and the real reason they have office hours. Put the foreigners on display to convince potential students to pay a premium for computer based training. |
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Blingcosa
Joined: 17 May 2008
Posts: 146
Location: Guangdong
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Very professional by Chinese school standards with an adult affluent cliental. |
'Very professional' - they are nazis who treat you like children. When I was there they issued a '10 Commandments of customer service' which included things like 'smile', 'always offer to help' and 'call the customer by name'. They issued 'whiteboard standards' which stipulated how to set out your boardwork. They have a guy come around and check each centre according to a 300+ point manual.
'adult affluent cliental' - rich assholes with a massive sense of entitlement
I worked at several schools - the second one was in a shopping mall, with classroom windows that looked out into the mall. Families would come and window-shop at my classroom. Very odd. Yes, just like a zoo.
The average stay at Wall St is just over one year. The vast majority of FT get out after one year. Actually, the money is terrible when you work out your hourly rate. Just not worth it. Don't do it. Consider yourself warned. |
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