Job Discussion Forums

[balatro]

[31]

cur?

ONE`s?

I bet your parents aren`t native speakers.

[balatro]

You do not know what a cur is?

My parents and even grandparents are native speakers, all born and raised in America.

Father: Born in Winston-Salem, NC - College: Undergraduate: Criminology at UNCC / Graduate: Harvard University

Mother: Born in Rockingham, NC - College: Undergraduate: Nursing at WSSU / Graduate: University of Pennsylvania

I'll even throw in my Grandfather

Grandfather: Born and raised in Salem, NC - College: Undergraduate: Yale University / Graduate: Oxford University

All above institutions require modest TOEFL scores ... we are all full blooded Americans. I've just been encouraged to read literary works and increase my vocabulary nicely.

[31]

Full blooded?

[balatro]

full blooded is shown that a person is within a certain lineage and has been for over 6 generations, therefore qualifying them to be labeled as a full blood (picked that one up in Biology )

We (my family) can trace our family coming to America in the 1500's -- before then we were in England until 1066 which is where we fled to from Normandy after the Battle of Hastings when our family (then under the name Guillaume) was a line of Counts and betrayed the Royal Family in the BoH and fled to England after that.

My father has all the documents locked away in a safety deposit box in Zurich, Switzerland where my father travels to frequently for work activities.

[JonnytheMann]

Hi David (balatro),

How long do you want to do TEFL for? A few years, or for a lifetime? If you just want to do it for a few years after you graduate college, then here is the biggest piece of advice I can give you: Get a degree in something that can land you a good job in the US! Don't get a liberal arts degree or something that doesn't translate into instant job offers. Computer science sounds like a good bet. Any type of B.S. would be way better than a B.A.

My second biggest piece of advice would be to go to a university that you can graduate from with VERY little debt. I went to Vanderbilt U. in Nashville, which is a great school. I didn't have to pay the first two years, but those wonderful grants and work-studies they give you in your first years to lure you to the school can sometimes be taken away when you get your aide package the next year. Needless to say, I had no debt as a sophomore, but two years later found myself having too much debt to do TEFL anywhere outside of East Asia. Also, my liberal arts degrees are basically worthless when it comes to landing a job.

I used to think college was great cuz I was "finding" myself, etc. But the truth is that you're always going to be finding yourself, and in the meantime, you have rent and bills to pay.

Get a degree that will allow you to land a professional job after you graduate. Save up a lot of money. Then go teach ESL abroad and really enjoy yourself instead of scrimping by in misery to pay off students loans.

If you get tired of ESL, you can come back to the States and get a good job immediately because of your degree. I can't tell you how many Ivy-League educated people I know who had a liberal arts major but can't find a decent job.

If you are going anywhere but rich, Western Europe, they won't care AT ALL about your qualifications. Just that you're a native speaker. In Latin America, they are not going to check your references.

I just caution against Cornell if the only reason you want to go there is for prestige. I'd hate to see student loan debt derail your TEFL dreams.

[marblez]

Balatro,

Now you are coming across as a snob I'm sure you don't intend it, so I'll just let you know. Also, don't forget that large, fancy words don't really impress people. Clear and concise information is the best way to communicate over the internet (and at all times, I would argue).

Nobody on this forum (and generally around the world) cares about the prestige of where you will receive your BA. In Canada, UofT or McGill may sway the legal bigwigs on Bay Street. I'm sure, as an American, you don't know or care about that, and it works likewise.

"Cornell" to most Canadians sounds like a strange breakfast cereal.

Just do what you love and it will go from there.

[balatro]

I'm going to Cornell for research primarily, it has one of the best CS departments in the US and the world. My scholarship is good for the whole 4 years, provided I can maintain a 3.5 .. I definitely don't want to go into debt myself so if I found my scholarships and grants being taken away I would surely look elsewhere as needed.

As far as EFL ... I'm looking at right now 1-2 years. However if I fell in love with it, I would surely look into returning after Graduate school or even putting off Graduate school and making it a career as long as I loved it.

My hope is to live within Europe/Asia as a professor but I want to have the experience of teaching kids and adults too.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

1 to 2 years is really not much at all. I wouldn't even think about deciding on a major or even a minor for something that you think you might do for only one or two years.

Look into the JET programme. It's one of the best EFL jobs going for recent graduates who are not in-country. It's a one year contract with (normally) a three year maximum. The competition to get in is pretty stiff (but the job itself is often pretty easy), so if you want to get in, you should start with some Japanese hobbies and or Japanese language classes pretty soon.

Stay away from terms like "full blooded". It makes you sound like you spend your evenings burning crosses on strangers' front lawns (haven't you seen the Harry Potter movies or read the books? The bad guys talk about full bloods and mudbloods. It's a racism theme). There are cultural meanings attached to many, many words that you won't find in a dictionary, or a biology class. And to Japanese people (for example), if you told them what you wrote here, you may not be considered full-blooded anyway. Nationality often equals race here. You could get married and your family could spend the next ten generations in Japan. They still wouldn't be Japanese. And if you showed up in Japan saying you were "full blooded American" that might just sound like "100% not someone I want to know to" to many foreigners, including the Americans I know. People would assume you were full of something, but not blood.

I'm Canadian too, and Cornell does sound like a breakfast cereal.

[balatro]

haha, that one made me laugh. I appreciate the posts though and will take it all into consideration ... afterall, I do have 4 years before any of this really even matters. Plenty of time to consider things and definitely plenty of time for my life to change.

[31]

[31]

[balatro]

[31]

Lets summarise the general comments to your OP:

1. It doesn`t matter which university you went to for a TEFL job.

2. It doesn`t matter what major you have for a TEFL job.

3. The most important thing is ''can you start tomorrow?''

[balatro]