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| Fellow JETs and I outside of the Pacifico Yokohama |
In late July of 2011, I was very fortunate to join the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET). Over the past few years, I've gained an special experience as an assistant language teacher (ALT) working in Aomori, Japan. Now, my time in the program is coming to a close and I'll be finishing my contract exactly three years after it began.
For anyone unfamiliar with JET, it's a program that places native-English speakers in public schools throughout Japan to assist in teaching the English language as well as fostering multicultural understanding in the country. In addition to ALTs, two more main job positions are available in the program, coordinator for international relations (CIR), and Sports Exchange Advisors (SEA); but I think the latter is rare as I've never met a single SEA. At any rate, the JET Program began in 1987 in cooperation with government agencies in Japan and several other countries; it has now grown to over 4,000 participants coming from 40 countries. As the website summarizes, "it was started with the purpose of increasing mutual understanding between the people of Japan and the people of other nations. It aims to promote internationalization in Japan’s local communities by helping to improve foreign language education and developing international exchange at the community level."
For participants like myself, the After JET Conference is a great event to help us prepare for taking the next step in our lives. The yearly conference is held in late February and takes places at a large convention center called the Pacifico Yokohama. It spans two days and only participants in their final year are allowed to attend. I thought the conference was quite good; here's a quick summary.
Day 1
First, it kicked off with an opening ceremony, featuring representatives from the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). One of the speakers was Shinji Urabayashi, currently the director of the Exchange Programs Division MOFA. This was followed by an introduction of the JET Alumni Association (JETAA), in which Sarah Parsons, currently the National Chair of JETAA, spoke about how to get involved with the association and the support it can offer us. Lastly, two keynote addresses were given; the first by Anne Good, the president of Eureka!, a company offering executive, career, and life coaching services, and the second by Adam Komisarof, professor at Reitaku University.
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| From left: Shinji Urabayashi, Sarah Parsons, and Anne Good |
In Anne Good's keynote titled, "What's Next?", she focused on strategies that we could implement to discover the right career path for us after JET. She emphasized the importance of, "passion, drive, and enthusiasm," and talked about the different things we should be considering. She suggested to ask ourselves questions like, "what energizes me?" and "who inspires me?" I thought it was a good keynote address and a lot of points she made were reaffirmed in other parts of the conference.
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| Adam Komisarof, professor at Reitaku University, giving his keynote |
Next, Adam Komisarof presented his keynote address, "Re-entry Preparation & Reverse Culture Shock." He discussed a lot of excellent points; perhaps the most interesting to me were the realities facing us when we return home. Most of us have had incredible experiences and when we go home, our first inclination is to want to tell our family and friends all about it. But in many cases, it will be hard if not impossible for these people (no matter how close to us) to relate to our experiences, and thus simply may not care. This point really hit home for me, because I've experienced it myself. For people that have never lived abroad for an extended period of time, it seems difficult for them to get truly engaged in such discussions. That would be one of my biggest fears about returning home; not having anyone to relate to about an experience that's really changed my live in a lot of ways. But I suppose this is just one of the reasons why the alumni association can be such an important community for us. Although I may not be returning home just yet, I don't see it not happening at least sometime down the road. Back to the conference...
After all of the presentations and speakers, the first day was capped off with a career fair. This included 27 organizations and businesses. One of the surprises for me was the lack of teaching-related jobs, which is more of what I'm personally looking for at this point. But it's also a reminder about how few JETs actually have teaching-specific backgrounds, and instead come from all kinds of different fields. Despite the fact that nothing particularly jumped out at me, I thought it was a worthwhile experience to talk with representatives of the various companies.
Day 2
The next day was composed of three main parts: a panel discussion, one-on-one career consultation sessions, and career field presentations.
The panel discussion was lead by four professionals and former JET participants, including Crispin Chambers (Head of Japanese at Tavistock College), Leah Gowron (Director of Alumni Relations at the Montery Institute of International Studies), Eric Korpiel (Recruiting Senior Consultant at Robert Leonard Consulting), and James Santagata (Principal Consultant at Career OverDrive!). They covered a wide range of topics such as current job market situations, possible areas of continued study, and suggestions on how to use the JET experience for our future careers. I thought this was a great session and I took lots of notes. One of the overarching themes I picked up was to "think outside the box" to a large extent. This includes things like asking professionals in the field to meet for informational interviews, or trying to go direct to employers for work rather than waiting for a specific job opening to become available. They also gave some good points on how to modernize one's résumé or CV, and how to go through the interview stages successfully.
During the one-on-one consultations, I actually met with Eric Korpiel who was part of the panel discussion I just mentioned. I had just 15 minutes, but I found it to be useful and it was nice to have the opportunity to chat individually with him about his background and hear his advice for me.
The career field presentations were the last thing on the schedule for the conference. There were five time slots so were had chances to see many of the different sessions. A few I attended were "Entrepreneurship," "Social Media," and "Finding Employment in Japan." The one I really found fascinating was the entrepreneurship session presented by Jeffrey Char (Representative Director for J-Seed Ventures, Inc.). I've already talked in length about the conference so I won't go into detail here. But basically I was thoroughly impressed with his Mr. Char's down-to-earth, honest advice and hearing about how to got to where he is now--very successful and loving his work.
Impressions
I almost always like professional conferences. I feel like I can learn new things and rekindle my career-related motivation if it has somehow faded. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I thought the After JET Conference was great. The speakers did a nice job of giving us authentic advice and points. I felt like they were really there because they wanted to be. My only gripe was that there was a major lost opportunity to network with other JET participants. Most participants came with others they already knew, and from my observations generally just stuck together instead of trying to meet new people. Unless you were to just go up to someone randomly and strike up a conversation, there weren't any chances to meet other JETs. Despite my efforts to talk to a few new people on the first day, I was generally disappointed because I would have loved to talk with others in similar situations as me. The final thing I'll say is that the conference was a big reminder that my time as a JET really is winding down, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some serious melancholy about it. But all good things must come to an end, and I know it's time for me to move on, keep challenging myself, and experiencing new things.
