By Lisa S
Graduation can be an exciting time for many. For me, however, graduating from university was filled with anxiety. What now? What next? (a few of the many questions I had!) As a handful of my friends entered the workforce and the rest returned to school for professional, graduate or post-grad programs, I decided to take a different route and move to South Korea and teach ESL for a year.
My primary reason for wanting to teach English overseas was to postpone the need to make a career choice because, at the time, I was questioning how I wanted to use my newly acquired degree. I had the itch to travel and an even greater desire to make some real money. Teaching English in another country offered me the opportunity to do both!
Although many countries recruit native English speakers to teach, I chose Korea because I heard (I admittedly did not research this myself) that the pay was highest. I also knew a few people who had great experiences in South Korea or SoKo, as I like to call it now. The city I chose to live in was Busan.
Here are a few highlights from my year as an ESL teacher:
- Meeting friends from all over the world
- Traveling to China, Japan, Thailand, and Laos
- Learning to write Korean
- Visiting a jimjibang (Korean spa)
- Laughing with Korean children
- Banking $15K doing work that hardly felt like work
I would highly recommend this opportunity to any graduating student! Here is a list of recruiters I investigated and interviewed with. They all seem great but I went with RBI as it was specific to Busan (#3):
1) http://www.footprintsrecruiting.com/