Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ttompatz]

[Weigookin74]

This newspaper article seems to show a trend for hakwons.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2938923

Prob not a deliberate policy with EPIK. I assume Canadians are also included under this American umbrella.

[rickpidero]

Instead of this ridiculous USA vs UK thing, how about an actual answers. My guess, the national criminal background check takes a very long time to get, Americans maybe aren't foreseeing this and simply can't get their docs in on time. Blame bureaucracy of Uncle Sam.

[Chris.Quigley]

[rainism]

[itistime]

like, whoa!!!!

[decafdave]

Two main drivers of the spread of English are the internet itself and higher academia. I'd argue the internet is the biggest force currently.

What language dominates the world of scientific and academic journals? Most languages are net consumers of info...more research is translated from English to those languages than vice versa.

For both of these aspects, the US is miles ahead of the UK. That said, the current status quo doesn't exist in a vacuum.

The Brits laid the foundation and filled the seats (hundreds of millions of people who speak some degree of English in the world today). Those who can get past the nationalistic bullshit realize it's been a 1-2 punch by the British Empire and the USA that have made English the dominant language.

While the South Asians are learning British English due to their colonial legacy, most East Asians learn North American English because of their economic reality.

[radcon]

[Weigookin74]

Nothing shoddy about being here. I have met some Americans who came here for a year when they normally wouldn't because of the 2009 recession. From what, I can tell, these people who go on to good jobs usually have rich families and can afford going to good universities. Their family can afford to pay for them to go live in a big city until they get established. The average joe who lives in nowhere's ville in an isolated rural area usually comes from modest means. The average joe can't afford to go to harvard and might graduate university with thousands of debt. They can't afford to move to New York to look for a job. You usually would start at the bottom and make low money and work your way up. After some promotions, you would make decent money. But in the meantime, rents are through the roof and moving out is not easy. Most people I know in Canada who left my small town to move to Toronto to do this after uni had some initial support from their parents. Guess what makes Korea easy is free flights and apartments. You can save and pay debts, but it's not as good as it use to be because of poor exchange rates. So 2 or 3 years translates into 5 or 6 years now. You also have to have money saved to start a life back home. Maybe move to one of these big cities to try to find a job starting at the bottom with a big company. Use your saved money to pay those outrageous rents and hope you get a raise or promotion before running out of cash.

[Weigookin74]

Also I should add some of these people I met had family connections or connections made at a top university that got them good jobs above just entry level jobs. It's who you know and what you know. In spite of those douchbag koreans who think they're better than us poor English teachers, most of them are in debt or working hours at a job they hate to pay ridiculous inflated prices for real estate. Then they lose their job at 45. We make a middle class salary and usually do better than many. Housing and salary with some experience can easily equal 3 million a month. If you live outside of Metro Seoul in the rest of the country, it's a decent salary. Better than many. Most us live marginally better than korean minimum wage earners because of sending so much money home to pay debts.

[Weigookin74]

But after debts are payed and then some cash saved up, maybe 20 thousand bucks, you can start your life in the west or here in Korea.

[Weigookin74]