I’ve been thinking about my career path recently.
My current job has taught me a lot of skills over the past year. I teach people of all ages (18 months to 70 years) and English levels, which requires a lot of flexibility. I conduct interviews with potential clients and promote our company’s textbooks, which tests my sales techniques. I manage difficult situations with coworkers (ask me about it on a private platform sometime), which requires patience and the development of a thick skin.
Although it’s been great, I think I’ve learned all I can from it.
Although I’ve learned all I can from it, I just renewed my contract to stay for another 8 months.
There are a lot of reasons for this, and they’re good enough that I don’t regret my decision.
One reason is that I am comfortable. Even though there are a lot of things I dislike about my current job, there are also some things that I love. My students are great, and seeing them grow is wonderful. The apartment I live in is provided by my company, and I can walk to work in about 15 minutes. I have my weekly wardrobe figured out, and I know exactly what is expected of me 9 hours a day, 5 days a week.
But comfort alone is not a good enough reason to stay, because you’ll never grow if you live like that.
The second reason is timing. Staying 8 more months means that I will be leaving at the same time as my high school seniors graduate. The end of a school year is a natural conclusion for my relationship with those students, and the beginning of a school year is the perfect time to look for another job if I stay in the field of education. Also, I’ll be giving COVID-19 a little more time to run its course. While I do think the pandemic changed things in ways that will never go “back to normal,” I’m sure many things will be easier to manage after the world has been dealing with it for a year.
Third, my schedule combined with COVID-19 has created the perfect storm for side projects and personal growth. Since I get out of work between 9 and 9:30, there’s not much entertainment to be had outside of nightlife like bars and karaoke. Since those are high-risk activities these days, there’s not much to do besides go home and study something new. Even though I think I’ve learned all I can from this job, it doesn’t mean I’ve learned all I can while I have this job.
All that said, I’m feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness. On one hand, I’m feeling good about improving at Japanese and dabbling in SQL and Python. On the other hand, I feel like I’m back at post-college square one. If my next job isn’t in English education, then what new path should I take?
P.S. Since it looks like I’ll still be here for a while, come visit me as soon as Japan starts accepting people from other countries again 🙂
Alisa & a Visa 