Ok… Now what?

Did you know that pressing 'option' + ';' on a Mac keyboard results in perfectly-spaced ellipses? Or that justified text creates ugly-looking 'rivers'? Three years ago, I didn't even have a clue what ellipses were, much less what kind of river could be affected by text on a page. Going to university to study Graphic Design/Design for Publishing taught me the answers to those questions and so many more. I left university with a Bachelor's degree and an arts education that is now priceless to me, not to mention the heart-warming friendships I forged in a small city in the East of England. However, after graduating, my university was not particularly helpful in giving me enough guidance to answer what is perhaps the most important question of all (especially for international students on a Visa): Now what?

Getting a work visa in the UK and the EU in general, is no small feat. It requires several documents and an above-average salary offered by a Government-approved company. The student Visa was complicated enough, so the odds were not in my favour.

I currently hold a Brazilian passport and have a temporary residence permit for Japan, so I was luckier than most international students that want to stay in the country where they completed their studies but find themselves unable to get a Visa despite having gone above and beyond to get the right qualifications. I at least had the choice of returning either to Brazil or Japan. I chose the latter because both my parents and my younger sibling are still living there.

While I do love Japan (I finished my last two years of high school here), I cannot see myself living here long-term, so I began searching for Master's or Post-graduate study opportunities elsewhere. I considered Canada, Sweden, and Australia. Course-wise, I was researching entry requirements and career prospects for courses in Marketing, Advertising, and even Business Administration. However, I knew deep down that none of these courses matched with my personality and my ambitions for what I wanted career-wise in the long-term. This is when I began seriously considering a career in teaching. My mother and grand-mother were both teachers, so I was not a total stranger to the field. Yet I still had no idea how to go about obtaining a teaching license, where would be best to get this, where I could find work after etc. So once again, I was left wondering, 'Now what?'

Thankfully, I had kept in touch with a handful of teachers from my time studying at an international school in Japan. I sent them emails and hoped they would be free for coffee so we could catch-up, and I could get some much-needed advice. I reached out to my previous English Language & Literature teacher, my Biology teacher, and finally, my Visual Arts teacher. All of them were very supportive and sympathetic to my doubts and overall discomfort of not knowing what the "right" next step to take would be. They all agreed and encouraged me to look into teaching, and my Visual Arts teacher in particular, recommended I go back to England to obtain a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) for Art & Design. A teaching license from an English university is highly-regarded overseas, and is accepted globally without needing to get it evaluated and validated for equivalency in other countries. Everything just clicked into place in my head, as cheesy as that sounds. I noticed that whenever I spoke about this idea, I felt excitement, I was actually looking forward to going back to England to train to be a teacher. It would be a country I was already familiar with, and therefore, less daunting to move to on my own. Thankfully, I would not even truly be on my own since most of my friends from university are still living there.

… And now here we are, PGCE course applications open on UCAS in mid to late-October of this year, and I intend to be an early applicant. I am currently in the process of arranging teaching experience in British schools as well as international schools here in Tokyo and further afield in Japan. Although I am excited about what is still to come, the stress of preparing an exceptional application to universities is giving me flashbacks to when I had to apply for Bachelor's degrees. That is why I'm creating this blog, in the hope that if I share my experience throughout this 1 year before courses begin, not only will I reflect on it more effectively, but I might also be able to offer insight into a career path for recent graduates that are also asking themselves that all-consuming question: Now what?