Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Sonata]

I've looked up things through the various posts on here and I just wanted to verify somethings as well as ask a couple opinions.

First of all, I am in Korea studying the Korean language and have been here for a while now. I have come to like Korea and plan to stay here and decided I want to try teaching when I finish the language program. For a couple weeks I did some assistant teaching at my old university and I enjoyed that, I also get along well with kids and so I think I would enjoy teaching.

So I would like some people's opinion on the following. I was thinking of doing a Kindergarten position for a year and if I like it I would take courses to become more qualified in teaching. I've heard that kindergarten can be a lot of work, but that is okay by me because it also seems to be pretty rewarding seeing the early progress in the language. People also seem to burn out of kindergarten, so I am thinking I might have a better chance at landing such a position than I would others given my lack of experience. What do you think?


As for some verifications. I am sending in my documents for my background check this week. I am going to use an apostille service since it is a bit of a headache, at least for this first time around. This doesn't seem to be a big issue. I saw others recommend this company in other threads and I have emailed the company and they are quick to respond. According to a thread I can obtain my fingerprints at a police station so I plan to go to the local one in Sinchon first and if it doesn't work there was one in Insadong mentioned in a thread here that was said to have taken prints. The issue more is my diploma and its apostille. Before coming to Korea I made a copy of my diploma as I needed it for a school I applied to, so I do have this copy. However, I do not have the original, it is in storage back in the states. On this, I have seen contradictory information so I wanted to verify it. I asked the company I intended to send into about it and they said a copy is fine as long as they have a affidavit/written statement from me stating it is a legitimate copy. But the threads on this site said that I need to get an official notarized copy then send that in to get apostilled. If that is the case, I need to request, I believe, a replacement diploma and have it sent to someone in the US to obtain a notarized copy and have them send it in to the Secretary of State to have apostilled. So do I need to do the latter, or can I just take my printed copy to the embassy here and get an affidavit written out?

Also in everyone's experience how long did the FBI background check take. It says 8 to 12 weeks, but is that closer to 8 or 12? If 8 then I could have it back in time to get a job in June before my student visa will expire. If 12 then it may not get here until after words, which I believe means I'd have to leave to Japan to change to a tourist visa and then leave again to Japan to change back into a working visa right?
Although I may plan to study until September so that may not be an issue, but if I can work starting in June, I'd like to. If there is no lapse in Visa though, can I converted from D4(Student) to E2 in Korea, or do I still need to leave to Japan?

I know that was a lot, but I really appreciate any feedback on this.