Hey guys,
I am an international student in Canada from Italy. After graduating from a 2 years course at Seneca College (Computer Programming course), I decided to take a chance at learning Japanese in Japan.
I’ll save you the details and I’ll just say after talking with GoGo Nihon, it’s more than feasible for me economically speaking, they managed to answer almost all my questions and doubts.
I have, however, only one thing to clear up.
How worth is this college diploma for job searching in Japan?
I can’t find a proper answer or come up with one. Everyone online who is in Japan either has an US diploma\\degree, or comes from a Canadian university. I can’t make a comparison with Italian qualification counterpart because there is none ( at least not online, friends suggested me to call an university and ask directly but I haven’t done that yet).
Since I am very negative about my diploma here due to how bad my experience as an international student has been here, I don’t want to take my conclusion as fact and prefer to relay on others knowledge\\experience for this topic.
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What can you guys tell me about this?
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Feel free to AMA if you want.
PS: I am not expecting to do big jobs, whatever pays the rent and fees is fine to me, but having good experience in my resume (been working at IBM for a year as a Server Build Technician) I think I can aim for something more. My hope is to get a job as an English or Italian teacher, since this is what I like to do the most.
PPS: I am fully aware that basically “no bachelor, no party”, always have been. I was wondering if could help me get a slightly better job while studying at the language school
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Thanks in advance to everyone
7 comments
>How worth is this college diploma for job searching in Japan?
Being blunt: It’s literally worthless.
Why? Because it’s not a bachelor’s degree. A bachelor’s degree is an *immigration* requirement. If you don’t have one, you can’t get a visa.
Unfortunately you also can’t get a working holiday visa, because Italy isn’t a participant.
You’ll be able to go on a student visa to attend language school, and you can work while you’re there on the student visa. But unfortunately you won’t be able to stay in Japan after your studies.
The only way you’re going to get a job in Japan is if you either had a bachelor’s degree or 10 years experience.
Your degree does not make you eligible for a visa; it’s not a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent). Which makes you ineligible for any work visa.
If you don’t have working holiday available for you, then you’re not eligible to go work in Japan. Not even as a teacher.
So either get 10 years experience or a bachelor’s degree. Or marry a Japanese person.
My diploma from Sheridan College (now Sheridan Institute of Technology) worked just fine for an engineering visa. The key point though was that it was a three year program (thank you co-op!). It was explained to me that if I had only spent two years it would not have counted for immigrations education requirements.
It appears Seneca is now awarding bachelor’s degrees though, so maybe you can transfer in and finish off the bachelor’s there?
https://www.senecacollege.ca/programs/fulltime/BSA.html
a 2 year diploma program is not a bachelors degree, and does not qualify you for a visa under regular circumstances
“ I Just want to get by and pay bills is fine by me”, in one of the most expensive metropolitan cities in the world is probably not you best option. Just saying.
New comment to make sure you get notified. In regards to your second edit: Unfortunately it’s still not going to be particularly helpful. It won’t *hurt* you, but it won’t really help, either.
The main issue is really working hours. As a language student, your availability is going to be outside normal working hours. Aka: You’ll be working nights and weekends. Most of the jobs your degree might help with are going to want you to work during normal business hours.
One thing I don’t think anybody else has mentioned;
If you are set on Japan and do need the bachelors degree, your Seneca diploma may give you credits towards a bachelors degree, allowing you to do a bachelors in Computer Science in less time.
I did a 3 year diploma at a Canadian college, which ended up giving me about 1.5 years worth of credits at a University.
Doing a bachelors in 2/3 years while working part time to get experience could be a good idea.