Author: Neysha Bauer

It had been about 10 months since I’d arrived in Daegu, South Korea and I hadn’t left the country since. It’s funny how over time you can change without even knowing it. I went to Japan expecting to have a pretty great vacation (because come on, it’s Japan), but I wasn’t really planning on coming back with a whole list of new lessons learned.

What’s better: One year, one country or one year, many countries? I definitely agree on the latter, which is why we put together this list to help English teachers in Korea decide how best to use their vacation days while living abroad. Asia is huge, beautiful, and exploding with must-see destinations.

The education system in South Korea is changing, and the thing about change is that it takes time to perfect. I learned this the hard way and it’s greatly impacted my year as an English teacher in The Land of The Morning Calm in many positive (and sometimes not so positive) ways.

When I first made the decision to move to Korea as an English teacher, fear hadn’t dawned on me yet. It wasn’t until I started telling my friends and family about my upcoming adventure that I began feeling the sting of anxiety. I realized that almost every person I knew had asked me in one way or another, “Aren’t you scared?” At first I kept thinking, “Of course not!” Then, I started to wonder, “Should I be?”

Last week you saw the first installment of this two-part series which aims to guide teachers in the right direction during your time in Korea. there are many ways that you can go wrong with your experience in Korea, but there are also many ways you can go right. Here is the second part to making your time in Korea count.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from the things life has thrown at me, it’s that people have their own reasons for making the choices they make. Moving to Korea as a foreign language teacher is no different; we’re all here for our own reasons, at varying stages in life, and with diverse intentions.

I have to be very honest: I wasn’t very joyful during my first few weeks living in Daegu, South Korea. In fact, I was upset, frustrated, and annoyed more often than I was happy. While all my friends were experiencing their ‘honey moon’ phase, I was feeling defeated. There were three things that helped me get out of my funk and start enjoying my time here, two fold.

If you are applying for the EPIK program you are probably terrified about how the EPIK interview will go. Here is some advice from Neysha Bauer, an EPIK teacher who has been through the process before!