This is going to be very embarrassing so please do not comment anything hurtful or unhelpful
I (F21), am from the US and soon to be married to a Japanese national (we were long distance for years, we live together in Tokyo now). My lack of education and job skills is making me nervous for the future.
I am on a student language visa. My level is approaching N4. I do not have a degree. I have a part time job and enough savings to make it through another year and a half on my own.
I am wondering where I should go education/career wise from here. My family never went to college so I have no idea how to navigate it. We plan on living in Tokyo at least for the next few years but I wonder if it would be smarter to return home and attend college there.
My school recommended to pass the JLPT N3 and attend a senmon gakko (I was thinking business or IT). Others have recommended getting an online degree and some have said I should just skip college and develop other skills.
What would be a solid career path in my situation, or just a job option that can help support my fiancé and I in the next few years?
4 comments
If you marry a Japanese national, you can get a spouse visa which makes you eligible for work anywhere.
I think you should pursue and education that fits your interests above all else. If you plan on being in Japan long term, it may be ok to do your education here compared to back home as you would be close to your spouse and Japanese universities would have decent recognition within Japan albeit not so much outside. You can then do as much part time or even remote work to cover some expenses while you study.
You’re still young, focus on getting your N2 first then you will have many options if you have professional level in both EN/JP
Focus on learning Japanese to a professional level first, this will be the key and will solve most of your issue here
Once you get confortable at Japanese you will be able to find a lot of opportunities. Many Japanese companies aren’t over-focused on degrees and are fine to train someone from scratch if you show motivation.
Per exemple : Office jobs, real estate, accounting, import/export etc etc…
Well, youre 21 so you can relax a LOT. I only started my career in IT when I was 24/5 (Graduated Uni at 22, 2 years or so of covid unemployent, before I took a worknig holiday and got an IT position in Tokyo.
Obviously my Japanese was pretty fluent since my ex of 4 years was Japanese, but youll be able to find a position in an international company that will train you from the ground up, don’t worry about it.
I recommend just working a random hotel job in Tokyo for a year to get industry experience in a multilingual environment and practice a tonne of Japanese in the meantime. (Barrier for entry is low for a lot of Hotels luckily and its more significant than working at a supermarket/cafe/bar)
It took me a year and a bit of studying daily for N2, with my method being forcefully memorising the N2 vocabulary on memrise, practicing Kanji writing on my phone with the Kanji Study app, then I just picked up grammar from conversation and roughly reading the PDF of Genki1/2 online once I knew 1000 words or so.
Thank you for the examples, that’s very helpful!
It makes me feel better to know that the main barrier for me is the language and not a degree. I’m not great at studying so I’ll have to develop a new routine to get to the N2 level. I’m struggling with kanji retention right now- my vocabulary is broader than my kanji knowledge so reading is challenging.