Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jondepoer]

Well, here's my story.

I met my wife (no not a Korean, a Canadian) 2 weeks after arriving in Seoul in 2009. We lived and worked together in Anyang/Gwangju/Seoul for about 4 years, all the while working on a master plan to head home and transition to a new career. We both agreed that Korea, while often fun and interesting, was not a long-term situation for us. There was too much uncertainty and, frankly, shadiness, for us to commit our future to. Since we both had similar backgrounds and interests, it wasn't too surprising (albeit a little unusual) that we were both interested in pursuing speech language pathology. So we set about putting together a financial cushion that would allow us to do that.

The first year, we saved $0.
The second, we saved $20,000
The third and fourth combined, we saved $90.000. Note that we each had two jobs, and worked in Gangnam

So, with $100,000 we decided that we had enough to get started in a new field and not have to worry about finances for the first year or so. We put together a careful budget, accounting for everything we could think of. This included a year of undergraduate education that we both needed to apply to grad school for speech language pathology, which incidentally, turned out to be an extremely competitive field.

A year later, and we've both gotten teaching assistant positions at the university we attended for the undergraduate courses. The pay is $30 an hour, but the work isn't plentiful. I've found another job that pays a bit more than minimum wage, but she's underemployed. There's not much left of the original $100,000, as we came back with absolutely nothing, and got ripped off on a number of things, including car insurance, apartment rental (since everybody is suspicious if you don't have reference from your previous landlord), and the general cost of doing things with little recent credit history, and no connections.

We're now living in an apartment in a nice part of town, have two cars, a reasonably steady income, and excellent chances for admission to a prestigious masters program.

This coming December, we're applying for graduate school, with the hopes of getting some scholarships. We've both got strong marks, and loads of volunteer experience. Fingers crossed that our crazy plan works. If it does, we'll both have easy access to jobs starting between 70-80,000 a year, and the whole crazy adventure in Korea will have been worth it.

Who am I kidding? It's already been worth it -- I met the love of my life, travelled more than anyone I know, and lived successfully in a foreign country for 4 years.

But the endgame is yet to be realized. It's close, but we haven't made it yet. It's hard moving home, and it's expensive. But if you set your mind to saving a whack of cash, make a clear plan, and follow through on it, you can make a go of it, and you'll be head and shoulders above your friends who stayed home working crappy jobs and whining about a bad economy while you were out exploring the world and getting yourself set up financially for your next move.

If anyone has questions about speech language pathology, how to save money, or other things related to moving home, feel free to PM me or reply to the thread. I've just been though all this stuff, and there are things I would have done differently, if you care to know.

[OBwannabe]

[jondepoer]

It's a medium sized city an hour outside Toronto. Things are not cheap, but it's not like I'm paying $2000 a month for a bedsitting room that smells like pee. My current rent is $975 a month.