Korean Job Discussion Forums

RichardT · Joined: 15 Nov 2010

I was reading a second ago about how you tend to have multiple schools in the EPIK program. I find this unfortunate a little, I'd prefer to be at one school. But its not a huge issue.

I do want to ask though what some of the other people here who are currently in the EPIK program, think about their commutes?

How are you going from home to school/ Bus? Taxi? How spread apart are the schools you work at? ...One thing I'm pretty adamant about is that I do NOT want to drive at any time in Korea. I hate driving. Even in the US. I despise it, even if its jsut to the corner store. I wish i lived in the city so I didn't have to and one thing I'm so looking forward to about going to Korea is having a one year vacation from having to operate a speeding metal coffin I have to repair every year. I can't honestly see them expecting these fresh grads to get a foreign licenses and procure a vehicle within this 12 month contract, but if any one ever had to do this I want to know.

Related useful information would be, do you have a primary school and then some you go to less regularly? Is the schedule consistent with when you are where or are you finding out every week where your going to be, or even every day? How is this arranged anyway? Are you assigned a school district and that's how they establish what schools your working in?

Also if you could please state your location so that I get a grasp of whose having to do what where. Thank you!

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

Your schools will be in the same district. Usually your home will be in the largest town in the district and your main school will most likely be in that town. If the school is close enough, you will be on your own on how to get to your other schools. If the school is far, they will probably arrange a way to get you to that school, especially if it is far out in the boonies. This usually involves a teacher working at the school that picks you up if you're place is conveniently on the way. Otherwise you may have to bus it or cab it. As for compensation, EPIK does give you an extra 100,000 a month for every extra school you go to. Some schools may even cover the fare for you, if they are really nice.

Most likely, if your school is really rural, they will treat you really really well... unless you give them a reason to start to dislike you.

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

RichardT · Joined: 15 Nov 2010

that actually sounds nice. If your story matches any other posters thats very doable. Yeah, I keep hearing great things about going rual versus the cities, but in EPIK do you have any control over your location at all? Even so much as a request? Or once your signed in are you like a servicemen and its their discretion where they assign you?

kiwiinkorea · Joined: 17 Aug 2009

Where I am, there are some teachers who go to just one school, others do 2 or 3.

For me, I go to 2 schools - both about 10 minutes walk from my apartment. One is the main school (3 days) and deals with all the pay and paperwork and stuff like that - the other is just 2 days a week. The days are the same each week.

This is the same for some of the other teachers although they have to travel further out into the boonies to get to their other schools - they either go by bus or get a ride with one of the other teachers.

I think the teachers that go to 3 schools spend either 2 or 3 days at their main school and 1-2 days at the other schools. I think the furthest school is about 30-40 minutes away by car.

There are advantages and disadvantages to working at more than one school. One disadvantage is that when one school has a holiday/excursion/event or something, but the other doesn't you still have to go to the other school and miss out. Advantages are the variety and if you have a problem with one of the schools then you get away from that for a couple of days a week. Also if you go out into the really rural schools you get small classes which is great.

AsiaESLbound · Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri

I go to just 1 school and it's a 15 minute walk through a gray concrete jungle dodging motor bikes and pedestrians who can't decide to walk on the left or the right side. It's really not as horrible as it would look if you watched a video of it, but it's a bit too smokey for my conscious sensitive taste in living where I want fresh air, lots of space, and butterflies flitting about. It's actually faster for me to walk than to catch a taxi as it's slow moving in big 4 door sedans and SUV's where the roads are too small. If you are lucky to be in a lower population density area than this (I think most teachers are), you might just have a simple walk or bike ride. I understand most teachers live within walking or bicycling distance so commuting is practical and fairly easy. If in a currently developing area, you'll be walking inside actual construction zones or taking the time to avoid them as it's often just all building with no yard and too little street with little room to work with where you walk in the street hoping you don't get hit. There weren't any construction sites in my area until like 10 of em' sprang up around me just in the past month offering early morning banging noise 7 days a week and tricky stepping through and around the work zone messes. Safety and common sense comes to mind when commuting and opening a box of chocolates made in China.

Who's Your Daddy? · Joined: 30 May 2010 Location: Victoria, Canada.

For country school sometimes they tell you not to come if they have an event day, so you get the day off.

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

Fishead soup · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Location: Korea

It is hightly unlikely that an employer will request you to buy a car to get to work. I had this happen once I ignored him He suggested I buy a motorcycle. I simply refused on the grounds that they are dangerous.
I ended up with a long commute but I never felt like I was under any pressure to buy a vehicle.

Epik_Teacher · Joined: 28 Apr 2010

I commute to 2 rural schools. One is 5 minutes away, the other is 20 km on an old windy country road. I had to buy a car if I didn't want to wait an hour each way by bus!

JBomb · Joined: 16 Oct 2008

I am in Busan. 15 minute bus ride. 10 minutes if the bus driver shifts into Korean Bus Driver Mode.

oldfatfarang · Joined: 19 May 2005 Location: On the road to somewhere.

I have a 2 to 2.5 hour daily commute from a regional city to 2 rural schools (joined together but separate).

I can't post why I have this long commute arrangement (and why I have to live in a nearby city), but I will be posting why after I've received my severence etc.

EPIK sure is a crap shoot.
Stay lucky.

southernman · Joined: 15 Jan 2010 Location: On the mainland again

last year I was at 3 rural schools. Ranging from 7 to 14 km's from my apartment. To go to one of those schools, if I took the bus, I would have had to leave at 6.30am. That was the bus schedule. So I bought a scooter instead. Extremly cold in winter, no matter how much I rugged up.

It's actually 50 000 Won per school (a month) if you teach at more than one school and you may well get the rural allowance which is another 100 000 Won a month.

This year I'm less than 5 minutes walk away from the one school I teach at.

If you get a rural location you may have to request the rural allowance yourself and it can be a bit of a battle getting it, but it's well worth the effort

Birmingham.couple · Joined: 29 May 2010

Me and my wife both work on the Epik rural scheme, our flat in slap bang in the middle of our two schools and they are 10 minutes away in opposite directions.

Pretty good to be honest.

Taya · Joined: 09 Jan 2009 Location: Changwon

My main school is a 20 minute walk away. I go to the other school every Monday and it is a 10 minute bus ride, but I usually have to wait 10-30 minutes for the bus to arrive, plus 5 or 10 minutes to walk to the bus stop.

However, I don't need to show up at my second school until 10:30 am instead of 8:30 am so I can sleep in a little on Mondays.