Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Aurora_Redwinters]

This is the question for all the veterans on this board especially, but all are welcome to chime in if you already know the answer to this question.

When/If you are done with teaching in Korea, what sort of jobs or careers did you pursue back in your home country?

The biggest thing I am struggling with is figuring out what I can do with whatever experience I gain by doing the teaching gig here. I guess going back to school and getting more education so I can become a professor is one thing, but I am curious about other options also that I can not think of.

Thanks!

[Temporary]

I want to go back to school, or change my career once more. I like change its good for the soul..

Maybe I will join the Marines

[Oreovictim]

That's a good question. I'd like to so at least six years here. That should be enough to buy a small little house where I'm from. Or I could work here four years and buy a house in Thailand. But then I would still be teaching. Other than teaching, I'm not quite sure.

[tob55]

It is never too late to consider re-ordering your career goals to keep them in line with the experiences you have gained while in Korea. Too often, people chalk their experiences up as wasted or time off from the real world. This kind of thinking is really narrow sighted, because everything we do and experience in life teaches us something about who we are and what our skills and talents may or may not be.

I have been in education for more than 27 years. During that time there are many things I thought about exploring that offered me the lure of position and money, but for every practical reason I always come back to working with people in some teaching/educational capacity. I don't credit my successes or failures to circumstances, because I help determine what those circumstances are by my decisions.

You next career phase/position may not be clear at this point, because this chapter isn't completely closed. I have several friends who have left Korea and then said they wished they had decided to see some other place in the world rather than going back to the same old grind they faced back in their home country.

Assess your strengths as you see them right now, and use that as a barometer to explore some options. You may come up with a list that is way impractical, but maybe not. In the end, no one can make up your mind, you have to do that yourself. I have more to say, but if you want to ask some direct questions it might give me more to go on when responding.

[WoBW]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. Sometimes I feel I don't want to be an ESL teacher for the rest of my life, other times I think why not? I can make money in certain countries and experience different places.

Some people, even ESL teachers themselves, scoff at the job and say it's not a REAL job. Who cares if it is or it isn't considered a real job. I've had to status job in the past - ten years as a scientist and project manager back home. It didn't make me happy which is why I left.

Like a lot of people, I don't really know what to do for the rest of my life. I'd like to stay overseas, preferably in Asia, but options are limited. I could go back home and do something completely different. I've even thought about studying law and becoming a barrister. One big issue here - I can't stand the thought of starting again back home. I just don't know.

I'm having some success with writing, several textbooks to be published this year with more in the pipeline with the backing of a publisher. That's something I would like to try to make a career out of. If that doesn't work I just don't know what I want to do.

How many others feel like this?

[Dome Vans]

I came to Korea after working as a Chef in Sweden for four years. Love cokking, taught myself to do it. By the end I was highly sought after in Stockholm, running a very successful restaurant. I think I fell in love with the place. Perfect place to bring up a family and a beautiful, healthy place to spend with time off. Being a chef takes 18 hour days and a lot of hard slog.

I always thought I could be a teacher, it runs in the family. Wasn't too sure if I could do it. So as a taster I got my CELTA and then came to Korea to teach. Absolutely love it. Will spend 2-3 years here and then off back to Sweden to do their PGCE course for a year and a half and then teach there.

Being an EFL trainer is a great way to travel, see the world and meet interesting like minded people but to me it can only go so far. I want the place I settle down to be perfect for bringing up kids. So not really submitting to the 9-5 office jobs that I've done before, teaching is easily the best way to carry on. Korea has been great and is definately teaching me a lot about teaching! and more importantly about myself.

[articulate_ink]

Life after teaching in Korea? Teaching in Hong Kong. I'm out of here in three months. But there's more to it than that. I spent several years thinking about and planning my next career move. After about 15 years in the last job, I decided I wanted to be teaching at a university, doing freelance writing and editing work on the side, and maintaining my own writing career. Now I'm doing all of those things. As much as I detest certain aspects of life in Korea, I definitely appreciate the fact that I've been able to make this career change here. It might be possible to continue Career 2 back in the US but considering the mess the country's in, I'd rather not live there again. I prefer Asia.

[xingyiman]

I got thrashed really bad back in the job market stateside and I have mutiple techincal degrees and a Master's. I am now pursuing my dream of becoming commercial diver and then getting into marine archaeology.
Call me a loser if you must but I am a well educated and trained loser. I have just single handedly watched the job market evaporate before my eyes within the past 10 years. I'm not saying that there are not opportunities for people back home but when I weigh the opportunities available to me against the return I can currently expect coupled with areas I could live, I just can't justify returning.

[crusher_of_heads]

[PRagic]

On a personal note, I took this question pretty seriously and flipped my situation around. I thought that I'd like to NOT work in ESL now, but wouldn't mind keeping that as an option when I'm ending up my career and the better half and I are looking to semi-retire.

Why? Pay and work conditions were going down hill, and this is something that my wife saw coming down the pike. She spend a lot of time in Japan, and saw the same thing happen there.

So I stayed in school and invested in my education for the long term. ESL paid the bills through most of my schooling, but I finished my Ph.D. in a different dicipline. Now I can work at university in Korea or elsewhere.

If I wanted to change careers? I'd go full time consulting. The important thing is to keep upgrading yourself so that you CAN make a move back to your home country if you want.

Most of the 'old-timers' I know here have no plan to go back to their home country and work. Far from it. Most are banking and investing away in more than one country, and most will be able to retire early, or take a semi-retirement route whereby they take on a part time gig a few months a year just to keep busy.

It's a value call, really. If you want the big house and the fancy cars, they come with a price. The price is freedom to retire when you want, and the ability to bank and invest enough in your younger years to make it happen.

[Dome Vans]

[PRagic]

Well, I think it's that plus the base financial ability to accomplish it. N. Americans are infamous for saving either none, or a super small percentage of their income toward retirement. In the end, this means HAVING to keep working into one's 60s. The tax situation in Canada puts Canadians at an added disadvantage.

Working in education here, especially if you keep upgrading your qualifications, can lead to increased savings at earlier ages; this in turn leads to more freedom earlier on in life.

Or you could up and move to Sweden or Finland. These people are happy, work less, and place more emphasis on quality of life than on corporate success. Still, you have to work longer there.

So, for the lucky, it's about personal choice. Some peoples' options are limited for whatever reason, that's a different story, and not mine to tell.

[Dome Vans]

Having lived in Sweden for four years, I'll be going back there after I finish my Asian jaunt. They have a very liberal and equal society. But they can be almost stuck up on just how good they are, the problem being it's a bit of a smoke screen for the society in general. Swede's don't really see a joke about themselves, it just doesn't happen.

There isn't that competitive nature that we have in other western countries. Swedes don't shit on each other to 'make a buck'. But as with most societies there is definitely the upper class who are well looked after. But their taxes are higher and in a recent poll the gap between the richest and poorest is the smallest in Europe. England came somewhere near the bottom, and our gap is increasing all the time.

The Swedes are a very shy nation, so as soon as they've finished work they're home and locking the door for family time, which is fantastic to see. They complain about working long hours but the benefits are there to be seen even with the high taxes. They have a lot of national holidays which was always nice especially Midsummer which is the biggest family time of the year.

On the down side. It's costs a bomb to live there. The suicide rate is one of the highest in Europe. Alcoholism is rife. The Swedes are almost as bad as the Korean with their drinking, because they are shy, they drink to lose this shyness but they go too far and then that's that. Horrible drunks!

I want to go back there because I want to bring up a family where paedophilia, war, terrorists are not bombarding us in the media all the time, supposedly! You have excellent family benefits, long maternity and paternity leave.......and of course the beautiful women!

[PRagic]

uh...ok