Hello everyone!
I have been really worried due to the following situation:
\- I have now been living in Japan for over 5 years.
\- I have obtained a Bachelor’s degree from a university here and am now pursuing a 2-year music course at a vocational school (専門学校). I have the JLPT N1.
\- My studies are coming to an end March 2024 and I want to change my VISA status from Student to Work.
\- My worry is this: I have only attended my vocational music school with the following attendance rates: 1st year 61%, and until now for the 2nd year: 14%.
I am very ashamed of this. I have been battling with severe social anxiety and it escalated to self-harm both this year and last year. I really should have gone to school but felt dreadful on the inside. I am now coming back and though I am doing my best to go to school, I know that I will not be able to graduate.
I am terribly worried that I will (very likely) be unable to obtain a work VISA.
My question is this: is there any possibility at all to get the new VISA? Is there any chance if I were to attach to the application a formal written statement from the psychologist (or even picture proof)? As well as a personal “explanation letter”?
And if not, will it be possible to ever re-apply for a work VISA in the near future, this time from abroad?
I understand now the repercussions of my mistakes and I will face them. I was just hoping that maybe there could be some kind of chance still? But it all seems so hopeless at this point. 🙁
Thank you for your help!
8 comments
maybe use a lawyer when changing visa?
>work visa
You need a domiciled to Japan employer/job offer with them to get a work visa.
Do you have a job or a job offer with a domiciled to Japan employer?
If not, then do you by any chance mean the designated activities “job hunting” visa?
If so then attendance record as a student is quite important for that DA job hunting visa. Maybe consult an immigration professional?
so if you had trouble going to school do you think you can go work every day?
FYI, you are changing your residence status, not your visa (the sticker you might have used to enter Japan the first time)
Also, it’s visa and not VISA (the credit card company)
This would be a huge problem if you were trying to renew your student visa – that would almost certainly be rejected with such low attendance rates. However, changing your status of residence to a work visa should be no problem – immigration will not be looking into your attendance at previous schools when processing a working visa application. As long as everything else with the application is above board, questions like that won’t even come up.
I think it’s an ESID thing. Who really knows with immigration. Schools try to put the fear of god in you so that you attend I’d say. If you got a solid job offer that pays enough, I doubt they’d even look at your attendance. Obviously if you were trying to study more, it wouldn’t be possible but I wouldn’t beat yourself up over not attending a voluntary course, it won’t ruin your life!
Which country are you from? For better or worse, that seems to factor into the decision.
That said, from what I understand schools love to scare people into thinking attendance has a massive bearing on future visa prospects. It’s mostly because they don’t want to be hassled by immigration.
For future student visa applications or bridging visas (I don’t recall the technical name, but the one for the purpose of job hunting after graduation) it may matter. If you have a job offer already, it means close to fuck all. Speaking from both personal and anecdotal experience.
Don’t beat yourself up too bad. Things happen and we all have tough times, just do the best you can in the circumstances.
My not-an-immigration-lawyer take is: unless your work hinges on your current school, their recommendation, or your attendance record somehow, then it shouldn’t matter in theory.
This could be a bit of a grey area though where if it comes down to you being something of an edge case where they’re not sure about giving you a work visa or not, and they ask for supplementary documentation to see if you’ve been just using your student visa to screw around and not take school seriously (I’m not minimizing your health issues, by the way, but from the perspective of immigration they may see it that way since they don’t know your personal situation, and I wouldn’t go out of your way to mention mental health stuff to them), it *could* hurt you, but I think typically not.
Honestly what’s done is done; if you have a job offer and the company offers visa application support you should be in a decent position. If you have a job offer and need to do the legwork, then if you can afford it you might consider getting a visa lawyer to make sure your application is strong and won’t end up with questions/supplementary documentation asked for.
If you don’t have the job offer yet, then that’s what you need to be working on and worry about what’s been done in the past can’t help you and you should be full-steam on that for the time being, while also preparing to swap over to a job-hunting visa in case you can no longer be on a student visa.
Edit: ah, see elsewhere you seem to have an offer, that’s good and as long as the terms are good you *should* be fine. Even at worst if you were rejected once I wouldn’t give up and would work with your company and an immigration lawyer to massage the wording of the job description etc. and try again, if possible.