I know I should just wait and see where I end up and go from there, but I keep getting nervous about being placed somewhere where I will essentially be stuck or have a lot of difficulty getting around without a car as I do not have a license.
Curious if any alumni have an experience where they were unable to drive and were put somewhere with unfavourable commutes or bad weather (ex. hokkaido, do not want to have to walk/bike in -30 weather ðŸ˜) or if anyone has any knowledge in whether or not not having my license will make it more likely I am placed in a city with easier access to public transportion
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Having a license doesn’t have much impact on your placement. I lived in a rural area with limited public transport and it was fine for the most part. You can always apply for a Japan driver’s license if you decide you want to get a car.
Saying that you can drive will influence where they put you to a certain degree. From previous applications, you can tick whether or not you have a license or are willing to drive.
I know a handful of people said they could drive and had a license but didn’t REALLY want to drive when they got here. They definitely got placed in a town where they NEEDED to drive for work.
That being said, ESID. Don’t worry about it too much.
The vast majority of placements are rural. Even in semi-rural suburban areas public transport can be lacking, especially if your school is on some random road in the middle of rice fields. When I did JET i was placed only 60km north of Tokyo, and still my local train station only had one train every hour. There were also no bus services anywhere in the town. I needed a car everyday, my predecessor used to cycle 30km a day and everyone involved thought this was fine. I will say though, moving to Japan you should get used to walking a lot. I’m in central Tokyo now and usually walk 15,000 steps a day just going to and from work.
I know an ALT who was placed in rural central Hokkaido who couldn’t drive. No bus or train either. So she walked or biked everywhere.
No, not having a license will only ensure that you don’t get placed in a job that requires you to drive for work. Any by drive for work, I mean that you will be using a car provided by the contracting organization during your working hours. The majority of driving-required positions would be in rural areas, but many medium≥ cities lack decent transit so they also have driving-required positions in those places as well. Sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with the size of the town or the transit situation, and comes down to what the contracting organizations rules are. There are many cases where municipal ALTs are asked to drive to work, but prefectural ALTs working in the same exact town/city are required to take the bus.
There are many rural positions that are considered non-driving for work, but for day-to-day life it’s preferable or practically a requirement to own a car. For these placements, the lack of a driver’s license is not considered. This is possible because in even small towns the schools and hospitals might have some public transit access (even if the bus doesn’t go much anywhere else). It’s either that, or they’ll have you live in some teachers housing beside the school (even if the school itself is in the middle of nowhere.)
Regardless, people do find ways to live and enjoy their time without a car even in places like rural Hokkaido where the bus comes once every 3 hours and it snows for 1/3 of the year.
At the very least you will not be placed in a location where driving is considered mandatory. My city requires every municipal JET to be able to drive a car as we can visit multiple schools during the week. So our CO helped to set us up with a car upon our arrival. While its a 12 minute drive to my school, if I tried to walk it would take 1.5 hours. So by putting that you can not drive, I do think you will avoid situations where it really would be necessary!
However the prefectural JETs got placed in the same city, but were not required to have a car, nor given any help. They were all placed in walking distance to the station and to their schools, however just for life convivence many of them still found a car on their own.
On the plus side, Hokkaido isn’t really that cold. It doesn’t usually get below 20f/-6c. It just snows a lot.
That said though, I know people who have gotten placed in very small towns without drivers licenses. Not having a driver’s license just means you won’t be required to drive *for work.* You can live in a super small town, but you won’t need to drive for work if you live next to the school.
Folks I know in Hokkaido with sizable non-car based commutes either took buses so they were protected from the cold, or I know in one place the boe gave them taxi tokens for winter and they biked in the summer.
I lived in rural areas and I cycled to work. In winter during heavy snow someone from school would give me a lift.
I was in Toyama, it snowed a lot. My work place was a 10-12 minute walk. My predecessor did not have a car, but it was clear to me from the black ice and cars hitting people, because they kept sliding, that I needed to drive in winter for safety. Getting hit was a right of passage I was told.
The train in and out of my town would take an hour each way to get to the larger cities and it would shut down at times due to snow. It would also give you chiropractic adjustments since it was so old.
This one night I had to drive back and forth to get other ALTs stranded at a station in the middle of a blizzard. (I know how to drive in snow and crap weather).
Rain….it rains so hard and the wind blows so hard that sometimes it felt like upside down rain. Nothing but a full on rain pants and jacket would keep you dry.
I ended up going to a Honda dealership and getting a small car.
This being said, one of the larger cities didn’t allow their ALTs to drive at all due to so many ALT car accidents. And they had no choice.
One town didn’t let ALTs drive outside of work commute.
I don’t think they care if you drive, they will give you an old rusty bike and call it a day.