I’ll try to keep this brief I 33m and my wife 33f are thinking about relocating to Japan after getting pretty fed up in the country we’re in. We would be looking to make entry under student visas because neither of us have an advanced degree, or speak Japanese. So work visas will be difficult to get even though I have about 14 years of sales/ digital marketing experience. My wife, however doesn’t have much in the way of work experience, we’d have enough money between savings and our market shares to buy a house cash and have enough to pay for school on top of living expenses for quite awhile. What sort of hurdles can we come to expect? I’d like for us to get our degrees in Japan then go on to work in Japan.
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**What’re my chances of securing a student visa?**
I’ll try to keep this brief I 33m and my wife 33f are thinking about relocating to Japan after getting pretty fed up in the country we’re in. We would be looking to make entry under student visas because neither of us have an advanced degree, or speak Japanese. So work visas will be difficult to get even though I have about 14 years of sales/ digital marketing experience. My wife, however doesn’t have much in the way of work experience, we’d have enough money between savings and our market shares to buy a house cash and have enough to pay for school on top of living expenses for quite awhile. What sort of hurdles can we come to expect? I’d like for us to get our degrees in Japan then go on to work in Japan.
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I believe student visas have to be sponsored by an institution and you would have to actually go to a school. Also, have you been to Japan? I’m here for the first time on a student visa and it’s not all rainbows and butterflies.
The biggest hurdles you’ll face is finding a university that offers a degree in English, in a field you’d want to study and that you can then turn into a career in country after graduating. Unless you graduate with very proficient Japanese, your job prospects will be limited to English teaching and maybe recruitment.
Have you looked into universities? You’ll both need to apply to some form of education institution to get a student visa, and if you want to live together you’ll need to be applying to the same one too, and you’ll both need to be accepted. Are you sure you’ve calculated all the costs? Yearly tuition for an undergrad will be close to a million yen a year, each, and not hugely cheaper for a language school.
I have no doubt that you’d be able to find a Japanese language school that would accept both you and your wife to get you up to JLPT N2 over two years. After that, it really depends on what you want to do. You’ll probably not be able to find much (if any) work in your field with only N2, and you did mention earning degrees. So I guess finding a university shouldn’t be too much of a drama. Of course it would be important that you both get into university as without scholarships (which I don’t think you’d qualify for) its unlikely that immigration would allow you to sponsor a dependent (certainly language school students aren’t able to sponsor dependents). So that would be an added complexity, either you both attend the same university or at you look at areas with multiple universities around.
What is it that you and your wife would like to study in University? Given that you’d both be pushing 40 when you graduate I don’t think you’d be eligible for the usual fresh graduate programs. But after 6 years of schooling I’d hope your Japanese is pretty good so you may have a decent shot at getting back into those sales/digital marketing jobs (assuming a 6 year career gap isn’t too much of a setback).
Use Go Go Nihon. They can help you get where you want if you are unsure. There is a lot of paperwork and they will guide you through the process and it is free.
I would suggest to indeed try the sales path. The chances are slim, very slim but there is a chance since you have 10+ years of experience within that field. Research which companies are not requiring Japanese, send emails and don’t be afraid to ask your concerns to the contacts you will amass in your search. You will never look stupid for asking these type of questions and it’s one good way to getting a real idea of how your situation is and how you can proceed