EPIK Program

I'm teaching with EPIK right now and i really love it. i would definitely reccomend it as it seems to be as good as most hawkgwon packages, with the plus of working during the day rather than night, and not working on saturdays! anyway, i looked into a lot of the programs, and well, a lot of the hawkgwons can be sketchy, and there are a lot of scams, but EPIK is with the Korean Ministry of Education so it's really legit! It's just a really good package and the application process is long more than hard. Once you get to the orientation though you can tell how much work the people put into it! The one HUGE recommendation i would give would be the specify where you want to be located and if you're not familiar with Korea i'd recommend a city. I know a lot of people who didn't and got placed in smaller towns with no foreigner.

I've heard that some people have already left their positions with EPIK and ended their contracts. It was just too much. I know that when I first even thought of applying I was thinking to myself how amazing it is that people who aren't korean and don't now the culture or language, come to korea to teach english. I think a lot of reasons are behind their coming--including wanting to teach ESL to super-cute kids, wanting to be in another country and experience that life, maybe for the men or women, maybe they are escaping something at home, maybe they are coming for money, or a mix of reasons. 

 These are all fine reasons, but i just really kept thinking to myself how i could never do that in a country where i didn't know anything about the culture and the language. i would jsut get too frustrated and would hate it. i really would, that's just the kind of person i am. I'm in korea though because i am korean and grew up with the culture as well as the language, and have a lot of family here. I think it's really amzing that some people can come here and love it and learn the language and culture and just embrace or at least awknowledge all of the differences. I just think the people who cannot should be a little more weary before they sign up.

There was an email sent out about someone who was looking for possibly switching to a Hakgwon and getting out of her EPIK contract. The person explained that living alone is hard and the housing isnt the best. The email read that it was all too time-consuming, just getting by, that there was no fun in life anymore and it seemed like they were wasting time. This person was in a small, country town and would rather have been in a big city with other foreigners.

 I feel like the person should get out of the situation if he/she is unhappy. It won't help with their teaching any and probably won't get better if they are really unhappy. I don't think life is something to waste, ever, but i do think that people in the future should think about what they are getting into before starting something and then just quitting. I'm not calling this person a quitter, I'm just saying that moving to another country, even if only for a year, is a hard thing to do and if it's too hard, well, then that's something to really think about in the beginning.

You do enter a contract and that contract in for one year and leaving has its penalties, but it's really the penalties to the kids and the school. You start and you try it out and then you just leave if you don't like it? That's a tough call. Again, I would say the person should leave if they are really unhappy and shouldn't waste any time in life, but I would also say that this shouldn't happen in the first place. Times will get rough and anywhere you go you will have troubles and bouts of gloom, but this kind of thing really affects children and it's really important to not just leave them stranded, thinking that maybe you didn't like them or something. Also, for smaller towns it's probably their first time seeing a foreigner and I'd like to think most of them were trying to make the foreigner feel welcome, and then to have them leave will make them think they did something wrong.

 Again, it's a tough situation, but I'd just say that everyone who is looking into a job teaching in asia, you should try to think of the worst possible situation while enterting and if you still want to do it, for whatever reasons, you should commit to it. A lot of the situations ARE bad and a lot are good, it's just important to understand that fully before entering into it. I'm sorry if a lot of this was rambling, but I just think it's important to get something out here about this kind of situation.