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Getting to Korea is going to be a piece of cake!
All you need is to do your paperwork,
Get hired,
Get on a plane, and wa-la!
You're in Koreaaaa.
Here's what they don't tell you..
You're about to spend months..
(MONTHS)
on just paperwork.
And you're gonna spend around $200-$300,
Depending on how frugal you are.
There'll be recruiters that leave you hanging,
And you'll be playing A LOT of the Waiting Game
So I hope YOU are more patient.. Than I was
Let me break it downnn for yaaaaa~
First off, I'm not trying to discourage you
Or anyone from coming here,
I just want to be honest about my experience
And it wasn't rainbows and butterflies!
It was really hard.
Eh.. Mostly because I'm Asian
But.. That's a different story.
So I'm gonna try and make this as simple and short as possible
Anddd.. Let's get started! MEH
Here are the requirements!
Public school? Hagwon?
Not sure how to pronounce that wooord..
First one!
So.. As long as you have citizenship from an English speaking country
Such as U.S.A, Australia, New Zealand ..
I'll list more countries below. Uh..
Then, you're good to go!
On to the next step!
Second one!
Your bachelor's degree can be in anything.
Mine was in acting.
You just need your physical copy of it.
So don't get your actual degree notarized and everything.
Just make a copy and get THAT notarized and
get THAT apostilled
It's different for every country, so this is just for
Me, well, for people from United States of America
Next, know where you want to teach
Do you want to teach in a public school?
Or do you want to teach at a hagwon?
There are 3 public school programs that I know of
There's EPIK, GEPIK, and SMOE
SMOE is for Seoul
So if you want to end up in Seoul you have to apply through
EPIK to apply to Seoul
GEPIK is the province around Seoul
So if you want to be close but not in Seoul, there's that.
I chose the hagwon route because I was more
location specific, I wanted to end up in Seoul, no matter what
Also, it helps to know what kind of school you want to work for
because that is going to help you really
know exactly what kind of paperwork you'll have to do
and then you won't end up doing more than you need to.
Because I originally thought that I was gonna go the public school route
But I was really scared where they were gonna place me, so I didn't want to
And then the hagwon that I ended up at
I don't even know if they even looked at my TESOL certificate, to be honest
If you want a more detailed explanation of the difference
between the two, I would do a quick Google search
or even a quick Youtube search
And you will find PLENTY of opinion
about the differences between the two.
For me, I can't really say anything because
I only have hagwon experience
And I'm only.. I'm only 6 months in.
So..
Now you need to get your F.B.I BGC
Hoho.. Fun stuff!
Sooo if you're from the States, you need to get a
F.B.I Background check
So I think it use to be like, just, for your state,
but now they want like a nationwide background check.
So you have to get that from the F.B.I
And to do that, you need to apply for one with your fingerprints.
And I went to the post office, actually
You can do it at other places,
You can go apparently to your nearest police station
to get your fingerprints done,
it might be cheaper that way,
but I just went straight to the post office.
They did it for me there, and I had the form and everything
So, we just sent it off all at once.
Uh make sure your hands are moisturized 'cause
my hands are not supple and soft and baby-butt smooth
They're really defined, like, the lines are
So! If you are looking at mah finger, you can see
all the cracks and stuff
It's just really hard to get a clear print
If your hands look like miiiine!
So, do yourself a favor,
and moisturize before you go.
So what they don't really tell you is that
they can reject your fingerprints
and you'll never know
so you can be waiting for like
2 months, and they're just like
"hmm these fingerprints don't work. We're not gonna do them,
but we're not gonna tell them either."
So.. I would get your fingerprints officially done.
I heard you can do them yourself, but
It's up to you if you want to risk the money and the time
Oh!
When you send off your fingerprints to apply and get your BGC,
You have to put a little note that says
What it's for and for them to put an official letter
on it just so you can get it apostilled right away
Otherwise you're gonna have to get your fingerprints notarized and THEN apostilled
So you can skip a step, just send that little note
I'll put a link about that below
So you can figure out what to say
That's IMPORTANT!