Considering the Military?

[Nephlite]

How does one go about teaching in Korea?

Had a friend who was just deployed there. His wife was considering a job and she caught up with some of the other military wives and most of them do teaching. There's dozens of schools in Seoul that are desperate for English speaking people and the military will help set you up with training to teach you the language and help with continuing education for families who are deployed. Most families that are there are there for the long haul and their kids need the education.

[Pirian]

Just wanted to throw out there that one of my closest childhood friends spent almost a year and a half with his girlfriend teaching English in China (6 months in rural China, and 9 months in Beijing), and they absolutely loved it. Not only for the cultural experience, but because of how much traveling they did. I'm not sure what they made off the top of my head, but the two of them together made enough to put them in the upper-middle class, and everything except their food was paid for by the company they were working for. Along with all the traveling they did during the time that they were working, after their time was up they ended up taking an entire month just traveling around southeastern Asia, and they still came back with a sizable chunk of change in their pocket.

I know Korea is going to be more expensive to live in, but my buddy was just going because his girlfriend was (he's an Environmental Engineer) and he ended up having the time of his life. I'm pretty set with what I want to do, but he has me just about convinced to take a year or so out and go do it, and if I could convince my girl to go with me then I would probably start packing tomorrow. From what he tells me, they'll accept pretty much anyone with a college degree, and it doesn't matter which. So yeah, get yo' teach on, brotha

[Cream Soda]

Anyone know how the renewing those types of contracts work? If it really is that easy to get into, I'd probably want to stay longer than a year. Maybe do 3-5 in Korea, then hit up some other places in Asia

[Pirian]

I know for my buddy they were originally only doing 6 months and after that their company wanted them to do a year more while they only wanted 6 but they negotiated down to 9 months (with more pay), so I'm assuming it's pretty flexible, but I'm sure it depends heavily on who you're working for.

[Abandon]

Gonna vouch for this and say if you have the opportunity to do it, go Airforce. The amount of experience in scale to what you'll earn in a different branch isn't even comparable. It's just so fucking hard to get in to a good field that most people shy away. I would have loved to do the Airforce but at the time, my vision (of all things) is what kept me from doing anything worthwhile. I figured if I was going to enlist as a grunt, I'd rather grunt up in the Army rather than a grunt in the Airforce.

The issue with the Air Force as far as jobs go is that while that are extensively trained in the job they do, it is SO specialized, many of them know one part, and nothing else; it is very hard for them to adapt to situations, as you don't know the other workings of the equipment you work on. For instance, we had some radar go down, something with circuitry. since i work on an air force base, we called them, as it's technically their gear. The guy that came out was troubleshoot, and no bullshit, told us "well, i know what the problem is, but I'm not trained to do it; let me call the group that does this, they'll be out in a few days." Days later, that group came out. come to find out, troubleshooter was wrong, and it was something that required soldering. Whoops, wrong group of guys; these guys don' do those kind of repairs. And so on, and so forth.

I know for certain that in the Navy, the guys that work on circuitboards know how to troubleshoot and repair the equipment; if they own a part of the gear, they know it all. I like to think of it like changing a lightbulb, but not knowing how to check/change the ballast and having to call in another repairman (as far as the Air Force goes).

Boy, i went on a tangent.

Another issue with the Air Force is the priority of funding; the majority of it goes to quality of living, then to the personnel themselves; the equipment is last. Yes, the fancy jets they fly are the least funded parts of their mission. That's why they have the best golf courses. -_- also why the air force is losing so many bodies, heh.

[BaneTheBrawler]

and here i thought helicopters were allergic to sand

[shepardG]

Abadon is right, 75-85% of the airforce is so specialized that it's a wonder anything ever get's accomplished.

Although the funding point you made isn't quite right, Most of our budget goes towards AFMC and ACC (AirForce Materials Command, and Air combat command)

AFMC are the technology side of the house, aka, designing new bombs, fuzes, weapon systems, jets (f-35) etc.
ACC are the actually, "hey let's go establish air domminance over fucking Iraq, and then pound the ever living shit out of baghdad with 2,000lbs. bombs" guys.

We do have decent facilities, but we have crap ones too. It's honestly all about where you go. I've seen some navy shit (p'cola air station) that dropped my jaw in it's niceness, I've seen army facilites that looked more high speed than NASA...

God bless 'em, but i've never seen crazy awesome Marines stuff. Those mother fuckers (whom i love with all my heart) get shit, and fucking deal with it, and never say shit except to bust the other three services balls for being pussies.

[Clash Perez]

As far as getting a commision goes, it's not so simple as walking into a recruiting station with a copy of your Bachelor's and signing a page; it's going to take a lot more time and effort on your part to get picked up than if you were to enlist.

Joining the Navy as an officer is very different from doing so as enlisted, and the non-nuclear side of things seemed like a separate world entirely; I won't pretend to have input there. I will say that I definitely saw a lot of places that I doubt I would have seen otherwise, though none of them for very long.


My wife taught English in Korea for a year through EPIK. She spent many of her weekends hopping busses and touring the surrounding areas, and had a lot of fun going to different festivals and events, including a "temple stay" over a long weekend that seemed pretty interesting. She raved about the jjimjilbangs, too. She was in one of the larger cities (Pohang), and the various English-language teachers would often get together and go out on the weekends. If you ended up in a rural area, that may be less of an option.

She had a decent place to stay, healthcare, a good time over all, and came home with some pocket money when it was finished. When her year was nearing an end, her co-teacher was doing everything she could to convince my wife to stay, so it seemed like demand was high for retention.

If you want me to pass any questions along to her, let me know.

[Viq]

snip

This guy and Maacha know what's up for teaching in Korea. EPIK and GEPIK are the two main government-run programs to get native English speakers into actual jr. high and high schools. They make you work a little more, but will absolutely honor the terms of your contract. I've seen plenty of cases of people coming over to teach on a contract with a private hagwon (academy), but ran into problems ranging from their apartments not being prepared before they got there, to not being paid on time/not getting the agreed upon amount, to even the hagwon closing and leaving the teacher unemployed, homeless and without the promised plane ticket back home.

Also, unfortunately Clash Perez's wife was actually not in a large city. Pohang is a pretty small port city that isn't even one of the 7 recognized metropolitan cities (Seoul + 6광역시) in Korea. If she was able to have all those cool experiences in Pohang, imagine all the stuff you would get to do in a real city like Seoul, Daegu, or Busan (where I live). In the interest of full disclosure, Pohang beat my adopted hometown of Ulsan in the last game of the season last year to win the K-League title, so I'm pretty biased against Pohang.

[Salodin]

I asked cause with the loss of tenure in Florida recently, my gfs job fresh out of college is in limbo. She is probably OK, as she knows the right people and is good at her job, but teaching abroad was never truly off her list, and I told her I'd go with her if she ever did.

Any more info you guys have would be much appreciated.

[Tajin]

hit me up on facebook, you goddamned idiot, i dont know why you're asking these fools.

Why is this shit 2 pages when the answer is right thur.

[Viq]

Most of my teaching info is 2nd hand, unfortunately. I've taught conversation classes at a university while I was studying there because they were desperate and needed a body. These days I tutor privately and do freelance translation in my spare time while studying at Pusan National University. Anything about general life here, etc. I can help out with.

For the teaching stuff, here's the EPIK website: http://www.epik.go.kr/
That's probably the best place to start exploring, and if there's anything that doesn't make sense about it, then try asking. I could probably help figure it out, or I can give them a call and get a clarification on something in Korean first.

[Salodin]

My gf is the one looking to teach, but I'm still working on my degree. Do I have any options as far as finishing or continuing my education there? How bout earning a living while I'm there with her?

Also, fuck you cream. You've hijacked enough of my threads that I'm now hijacking this one to learn more about teaching abroad.

[Aksannyi]

This is good information though. I'm in college now to go into Secondary English Education and I would love to teach overseas - I just want to finish my degree first.

I was stationed in Germany from 2003-2004 and I loved it. Been trying to save up the money to go back, but that's a slow venture on my salary. I'd love to move to Europe and teach there.

[Viq]

My gf is the one looking to teach, but I'm still working on my degree. Do I have any options as far as finishing or continuing my education there? How bout earning a living while I'm there with her?

Also, fuck you cream. You've hijacked enough of my threads that I'm now hijacking this one to learn more about teaching abroad.

Check the EPIK link I posted. It will have info on a program called TALK (Teaching and Learning in Korea) that is available if you are in your 3rd or 4th year. They get you set up to work part time in an elementary school while you finish up your degree. It's what I plan on doing once I get to my 3rd year. I don't know the specifics about how much they pay, but it's easy enough to get by here. Like I mentioned, I do private tutoring now usually in the $30/hr range depending on what they are studying and if it's a group or not. I can charge a little more because I speak Korean too, but I know people that do tutoring on the side for $20-25/hr. If you're active about finding work, you won't starve here.

[Cream Soda]

Anything about general life here, etc. I can help out with.

Cyclist friendly country?

[Viq]

If you mean for recreation, there are bike paths and things all over the place. For transportation, absolutely not.

[Cream Soda]

Can't be any worse than US highway 19

[Abandon]

japan is more your speed for biking. niggas here are practically protected by the emperor. i want nothing more than to one day open my car door and let a nigga slam into that shit, then drive off laughing.

[Aksannyi]

Can't be any worse than US highway 19

God that shit is terrible for life, it's not just biking. They are never going to fucking finish that shit.