Aspiring applicant

[Sheogorath]

Greetings,

I am a history major at the University of Oregon, who plans to apply for the JET Program once the Fall term rolls around. I suppose you could consider this a 'greetings' post/self introduction type of thing, with a few questions tacked on.

I am (hopefully) two semesters away from completing my degree requirements, that is, a major in history. I had planned to get a minor in Japanese, but unfortunately my financial situation limits me to two more semesters, one short of what I would need. However, I'm hoping that my interest in Japanese history, literature, film and culture will make up a bit for this shortcoming. Being well traveled, I love going to other countries, although it's something I don't get to do nearly as often as I like, my last trip was to the UK back in 2006. I had high hopes when the Japanese government announced its tourism initiative, but I had heard that it was (perhaps wisely) cancelled in favor of providing further relief money to those affected by the earthquake, so no dice on a trip to Japan before applying to JET.

Besides my Japanese, I have a (very) passing familiarity with Russian and Spanish, an impressive collection of video games (probably the thing that got me interested in Japan in the first place, to be honest,) and an extensive library of assorted fantasy and science fiction novels. I am, in short, a serious nerd.

Now, I had a few questions which I hope aren't too overly common:

1. I have a distinct lack of 'real' job experience. Unfortunately I graduated from high school at exactly the wrong time economically, and found that nobody was willing to hire me because...Well, nobody was hiring. Afterwards, I found that nobody was willing to hire me because I was a college student with no job experience, a rather frustrating position to be in. What I do have, however, is a whole lot of volunteer hours, both from my time in the Boy Scouts as well as working with the National and State Park services of Oregon and Arizona. I'm also looking into volunteering at a local library for the summer, since, this being a tourist town which was rather badly affected by the same earthquake that struck Japan, nobody is hiring.
My question is, therefore, will the fact that I have, in effect, never had a 'real' job affect my application severely, despite good recommendations? I'm hoping the Japanese government is more willing to take into consideration the fact that I was willing to work quite hard for no money at all as a statement of good character than potential US employers

2. I had looked into education and language teaching courses here at the U of O, but it seems that most of them are specifically tailored for majors in those areas, rather than people looking to gain a bit of experience. I've seen in other topics that this isn't really essential to a JET application, but I was hoping for a bit of experience in those areas before hurling myself into a classroom environment. Are there any recommendations in that area? Maybe some course I'm overlooking for those here who happen to be familiar with the U of O's course catalog?

3. Out of curiosity, are computer skills a relevant matter for JET applicants? One of the places I volunteered at for some time was, in fact, a computer repair shop where I was hoping to apply for a job after some 'apprenticeship', although unfortunately the place went under. Like I said, the economy was pretty bad where I lived, even in comparison to the rest of the country. I have a few years of experience with various computer repair and maintenance people, both in the repair shop and in the aforementioned park services. I have something of a talent for explaining to people how to repair things on their own, and have even managed to get my grandparents to use something other than Internet Explorer, something which I put up there as one of my great life achievements given that it was a struggle of attrition on par with the first world war.

Thank you for your time in reading this, and good luck to all my fellow (hopeful) applicants.

[teabot]

1. as long as you can get refs from somewhere, doesn't matter.

2. the reality is a bit complicated, but the short and sweet answer is that it won't hurt you not to have such experience. if you're that concerned about it, look for volunteer opportunities with kids. speaking as an education major myself, the actual experience is what's going to help you more than the theory included in classes. (not that the theory isn't important, but for someone just looking for preparation for JET with no [stated] interest in education, the classroom or classroom-like experience will be what's most helpful.)

3. again won't hurt, but it's not likely that such skills will be terribly relevant as Japanese schools are rather shockingly lo-tech.


one general comment, though: these are the forums, we're not (or at least most of us aren't) going to be judging your application or anything, you don't have to be so formal. another thing is that if you tend to be more verbose in speech or writing (just judging on this one post, so i could be wrong), you might want to work on being more concise. it's verbosity is generally inefficient, but especially difficult for second language learners. (this is something that i sometimes struggled with, even when i was teaching native speakers, though.)

good luck!

[Sheogorath]

Thanks for the answers

Sorry if I sound overly formal. My parents and high school English teachers were of the opinion that if you're going to write something, you should write it like a formal letter. I tend to be a lot more concise when speaking.

I am a bit shocked that Japanese schools would be low tech. But then, I guess my first high school was still using projectors from the 1950's...I'm among the fortunate few who didn't grow up during the Cold War, but has seen a few 'Duck and Cover' films in their original format. Along with 'Blood on the Highway'. I would assume though, that they're not using film projectors and old narrated slideshow machines over there, at least on a regular basis.

[king]

1: There are lots of people who come over here straight out of university. The majority even. I'd only ever had part time jobs.
The boy scouts thing sounds promising, shows experience and interest in working with kids, you should really big that up on your application.

2: What teabot says, sure wouldn't hurt, though practical experience with kids is better. Try and get some international experience too- are there any chuch groups in your town offering free English lessons to immigrants for example? (its more common than you may think). Stuff like that would reflect very well on you. Plus you know, good kharma and meeting interesting people and all that.

3: I disagree with teabot. Its every situation is different but I never found my school or any of the schools I've visited to be much more low tech than schools back home.
A lot of older Japanese teachers aren't particularly adept with technology though so its good to be able to help them out once you're here, won't affect your application though.
Though you mention getting your grandparents to drop IE....you could perhaps bend this into teaching the inexperienced about computers. Often quite a similar experience to teaching English....