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Should I go for the 2-kyuu or 3-kyuu?

Well...I personally do not regret any of my 4 degrees since they allowed me to stay abroad 3 years out of 6. You'll get plenty of experience in time, but sometimes, it happens that the HR in a company doesn't give you a promotion because you lack some "qualification".

Also, as far as I've seen, Japanese HR are more impressed by degrees than by experience when hiring a freshly graduate (ie: a TOEIC will be better than a homestay abroad).
 
dreamer said:
Also, as far as I've seen, Japanese HR are more impressed by degrees than by experience when hiring a freshly graduate (ie: a TOEIC will be better than a homestay abroad).
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The impression I get from a lot of this forum (Okay, more realistically a few people on these forums that seem to pounce on anything 就活) is that you need experience if you're a gaijin, because otherwise it's pointless to hire a foreigner over a native.
 

Well...indeed, from the interviews I had, I can say that this is the case for the local companies.

Still, the best place to look for a job in Japan would be japan itself. I have been here for 2 months and have started learning japanese only since then, and I already had a few recruiters interested in my profile.

As I said in a previous post: "To catch the tiger's cub, you need to enter its den".
 
虎穴に入らずんば虎児を得ず, would be the saying in Japanese. You probably won't need that for 2級, or even 1級, or perhaps even in life, though. Might be cool to know at any rate (still waiting for someone to tell me it is).
 

This sounds awful risky though. I'll be out a ton of money and take a hit to my self-esteem that might push me over the threshold of suicide if I can't find a job in 3 months there. I'm a gaijin with only a part-time job as experience with a degree from a place that's not a Japanese university and that only a few states in the US know of. Not only that, I picked a very bad time to graduate. I'm screwed. This forum (well, a few people) has killed my self-confidence. I may as well jump Aurora Bridge now. The world won't miss me, anyway.
 

Well...the risk is here, and that is exactly why I used such expression.
I don't have much more experience than you (only 1 year in an american company), 4 degrees (3 french and 1 british) which probably avail to nothing outside their country, and no JLPT at all.
Still I got my first interview offer within 1 month.

It might be tough, but the reward may be worth it in the end. Sure you can go for the english teaching job...they don't even require you to speak japanese (not even a jlpt4)...but what would you prefer?

In the end, the people on this forum just gave you their opinions. The decision remains up to you. This is your life, and it's up to you to chose when and what to gamble.
 

This forum killed your confidence? There you go into gratuitous self-pity again.

Though I could relate my own personal experience, which mimics the passage below and which I fear you could find yourself repeating, it is a dull story, so I will instead paste a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance that I have always admired:


Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
 
Why not go with an English teaching job? What is holding you back? You will certainly be qualified to get an entry-level job as an English teacher, once you graduate.

Many people, from all walks of life, do it. Some only stay teaching for a few months as they transition into something they really want. Others stay much longer.

Actually, I think native-speakers of English are lucky that we can do this in Japan. If it wasn't for teaching English, many of us would struggle trying to find other ways of getting our foot in the door. It provides an easy means by which we can stay in Japan as non-tourists. It gets you there. It gets you to step one.

So why not take advantage of it?
 

Well, I actually think I might enjoy teaching, and meeting new people along the way. I'm not good at English in the analyzing/critiquing literature sense, but I'm always correcting people on grammatical mistakes, sometimes to the point where they get annoyed with my henpecking. I've also taken a general linguistics course and I'm taking a Japanese linguistics course now. Might be a nice break from CS, and honestly I'm starting to get burnt out on it a little.

Yes, I might repeat that story that I escaped nothing. But I might not. We're two different people. The only thing I know we have in common is an interest in Japan, but even that is a very broad statement. It's worth a try. People travel much shorter distances and are satisfied with their move. If I fail, I will have a new life experience and have learned something new. Hell, things could go the other way. I could just give up, not try moving to Japan again until I'm growing gray nose hairs, and regret I didn't move there sooner.
 
Well, I actually think I might enjoy teaching, and meeting new people along the way.
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That's the spirit! Now go teach English in Japan! Ganbatte.
 
NewHero said:
And then when you give computer programming a chance, you might look back fondly at your time as a teacher. Either way, at least, you would have experienced something new. And experience is the greatest teacher of all.
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A little nitpicky, but I've already given programming a chance. Many times. If CS courses didn't involve programming, that would leave only the few theory courses. And even then, not all of them. In fact, I've only taken one CS course thus far that had zero programming in it.

I've been programming since I was in 5th grade. I've given it a chance.
 
I suggest you go for 2-kyu. Even if you fail, you will have the experience of actually taking the test and you can come back stronger and learn more in reality.

I also suggest that you not try to come Japan to escape something. Or at least don't get your hopes up to high. It's just a place. It's not the escape many people dream of it being. You might love it, but you also might hate it. And one thing i will tell you is that it is not perfect (just like any other place). In short, whenever and however you do come here, be sure and put your expectations on the back burner, and just let it (Japan) be what it is.
 

Don't worry about literature analysis/critiquing--very unlikely anyone here would ask you to do anything like that.

In your second paragraph here, you sound like the type of person who could have a successful move to Japan. In your previous post, you did not.

In the end, moving to Japan is not like, for example, the decision to have children. It is easily reversible. You may lose a few dollars and have to learn how to swallow your pride if things turn bad (which is a good lesson anyway, perhaps even worth the cost), but that's about it.


Great, great advice. The people I have met who struggle the most here are the ones who come over with unrealistic expectations.

A smaller subgroup (most people suffer from unrealistically high/bizarre expectations) are those who come over expecting to be discriminated against/treated poorly as an English teacher, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expectations truly are bedeviling.
 
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Those posts were made during different times of the day, and under different moods. I tend to think less rationally late at night.
 
A year after passing the 3 kyuu test with a pretty high mark (90%), I was plenty of self-confidence to face the 2 kyuu one. As I was afraid, the problem was the short time you have. It's not enough "to know" but "to know" very fast. I got 217 points; I fail for 23 points since you need 240.
I decided not to try it again unless in Japan. So I'm planning to use my savings to study in Japan and learn Japanese properly. In special how to speak it fluently.
Meanwhile I'm focusing in learning everything about writing, what it's to say KANJI.
 
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