Recommend any good work abroad?

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Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby roach coach » Thu May 26, 2011 12:06 am

I'm finally graduating from my university with a bachelor's degree. I plan on taking a year off from full-time education to work and possibly travel, but I would love to blend both together. No Peace Cops or military (yet), I'm applying to grad programs later this year and might go ROTC if it can get me a full ride. Any recommendations from the Flag? Volunteer work would be OK as well, as long as I could find some grants.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby Jimbo » Thu May 26, 2011 12:34 am

Teach English in SE Asia & help promote cultural emperialism...
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby roach coach » Thu May 26, 2011 12:56 am

Thanks! The univ I graduate from has a TEFL program, but I'm moving away-- I may see if that university has a program which I can enroll. I'll probably take some intermediate Arabic at the same time (took a year here).
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby Fenrisco » Sat May 28, 2011 4:59 am

Come to Taiwan and teach English. Civilized, laissez faire society, awesome food, low tax, exotic, strange, low-ish cost of living, friendly people, amazing women, stunning and quite seriously dangerous natural environment, no commies, you name it. Very friendly to Americans. Good jumping-off point for the rest of Asia as well. I am reliably informed teachers can still make quite good money - you need a bachelor's to qualify for legal residence (once you have a job), and some sort of TEFL qualification would probably be useful but is far from essential - many schools are big franchise chains and run their own courses. PM if interested - I don't know if I can help get you a job (I have nothing to do with the teaching industry) but I can point you in the right direction.

There are a lot of inept whiny foreigners here who appear to find life very difficult and continually moan about not getting their arses wiped for them ("Someone should do something about it!!!!") but I'm confident that as a Flagger you would not be one of them.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby rickshaw92 » Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:13 am

I can hook ya up with a job in London.
Im reallly fuclimg pissed but fespite that I can still hit a tarfet at 1000m plus. mayVRVe bnot tonight but it qint beyond the wit if man. Nowhammy.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby roach coach » Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:13 am

rickshaw92 wrote:I can hook ya up with a job in London.


I'm curious, what kind of job?
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby rickshaw92 » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:20 am

roach coach wrote:
rickshaw92 wrote:I can hook ya up with a job in London.


I'm curious, what kind of job?




Image

Hustlin tourists, drunks, Arabs and drunk Arab toruists with one of these fuckin things. Did you really have to ask?
Im reallly fuclimg pissed but fespite that I can still hit a tarfet at 1000m plus. mayVRVe bnot tonight but it qint beyond the wit if man. Nowhammy.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby vagabond » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:41 pm

I like the leopard print cushions.

roach - what are your interests? what percentage of time working and what percentage traveling? what parts of the world interest you?
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby Dr. V » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:07 pm

You could try VSO - although very much skills based.

http://www.vsointernational.org/
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby marie-angelique » Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:46 am

vlindsay wrote:You could try VSO - although very much skills based.

http://www.vsointernational.org/


wow, cool

http://www.vsointernational.org/story/25511/the-lady-mechanic-initiative-nigeria
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby roach coach » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:13 pm

rickshaw92 wrote:
roach coach wrote:
rickshaw92 wrote:I can hook ya up with a job in London.


I'm curious, what kind of job?




Image

Hustlin tourists, drunks, Arabs and drunk Arab toruists with one of these fuckin things. Did you really have to ask?


Of course, it could have been something less lucrative ;) I have a bike to modify and I will fly to London ASAP.

vagabond wrote:I like the leopard print cushions.

roach - what are your interests? what percentage of time working and what percentage traveling? what parts of the world interest you?


I'm interested in "seeing the world" and getting some concrete work experience. Humanitarian work is what I would love to get into, but I'm also interested in the English teaching overseas. I'm very interested in the Middle East but wouldn't mind working anywhere. My strongest work experience is unfortunately in a first-world office, although I did get experience as an on-call wildland firefighter last summer.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby friendlyskies » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:23 pm

You know some Spanish, right? If you can get down to Central America by late November - high season starts mid-December - you can find work in lots of tourist destinations. Like, service jobs - it helps to be nice looking and charming. You'll basically get room, board, and enough spending money to buy the ladies drinks. Not ideal, but since you're coming from North America and the dollar is still worth the same in CA (unlike Africa/Asia/Europe), it's relatively low risk, low investment.

There are lots of volunteer programs too, but so many of them are scams. It's better to go down there first and then sort something out, just to make sure you're being useful. If I was going to pick a destination for you, based on the personality you display here, I'd send you to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica. You don't even need Spanish there, because it's on the Caribbean.

EDIT: There are other places in CA you'd enjoy more, but for work. You need a bunch of tourists, and the great thing about Puerto Viejo is that it brings in Europeans (USAmericans gravitate toward the Pacific.)
Last edited by friendlyskies on Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby vagabond » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:35 pm

roach coach wrote:I'm interested in "seeing the world" and getting some concrete work experience. Humanitarian work is what I would love to get into, but I'm also interested in the English teaching overseas. I'm very interested in the Middle East but wouldn't mind working anywhere. My strongest work experience is unfortunately in a first-world office, although I did get experience as an on-call wildland firefighter last summer.


Hmm...

Well, you said you only had a year...usually teaching english they'll want at least 6 months but usually a year commitment from the research I've done. I guess look at language schools in the ME but those seem to be the most difficult to go teach though I think Egypt, Yemen, and maybe Jordan and Lebanon would be more lax.

There's also this program in Sudan:

http://www.svp-uk.com/home.html

Think they want a minimum of 6 months commitment.

There's also this: http://www.teachaway.com/

And Dave's ESL Cafe is a good resource: http://www.eslcafe.com/

China and Korea would also be good places for picking up a teaching job, but would probably be year-long and so not much travel for you.

I would probably skip teaching altogether so you can get the most out of your travels and try and find decent volunteer organizations. I'm sure you're aware of it but spending some time digging through http://www.idealist.org/ would be worth your while. Also check the member directory of AlertNet by searching for your country of interest then see if the orgs are accepting volunteers: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/members/directory/

If you want to start off the trip somewhere interesting (assuming you're coming from the US), there's a volunteer organization in Iceland with lots of different programs that you can help on: http://www.seeds.is/

From there is a quick hop to Europe if you want or head straight to the ME by flying into Istanbul. You can pick up work teaching English there for a bit from what I've heard or you can explore the region. I would assume after the European vacationers leave in September would be good.

Another work program that you can do as a student/former student is through BUNAC: http://www.bunac.org/usa/
Work in Britain, Ireland (not that there'll be much there at this time), Australia, or New Zealand for up to a year. You wouldn't really be getting out of the Anglo world but Australia has cheap flights to SE Asia and would be different enough from the US to enjoy.

You can just travel too and pick up odd work if you find a place that suits you by working at a youth hostel. Just depends on the boss and the atmosphere but usually smaller ones are run by one person and so you can offer to help them out for a free accommodation.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby Dr. V » Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:37 am

I know its a somewhat boring way of going about things but given the current job market and also demand for post graduate programmes I'd actually look at things from the finish point and work backwards.

What kind of job do you want? What kind of post grad programme are you aiming for? and what kind of skills are those two places going to value? How is your year out teaching english / saving the world / travelling etc going to set you apart from other applicants when your form ends up on the desk along with hundreds of others.

You should consider how / what these kind of things look like on your CV and use them to do something which contributes to your longer term aims and which you can draw on during interviews. The whole rite of passage 'I went travelling to see the world' thing can be interpreted in many (and not always positive) ways.
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Re: Recommend any good work abroad?

Postby roach coach » Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:15 pm

vlindsay wrote:I know its a somewhat boring way of going about things but given the current job market and also demand for post graduate programmes I'd actually look at things from the finish point and work backwards.

What kind of job do you want? What kind of post grad programme are you aiming for? and what kind of skills are those two places going to value? How is your year out teaching english / saving the world / travelling etc going to set you apart from other applicants when your form ends up on the desk along with hundreds of others.

You should consider how / what these kind of things look like on your CV and use them to do something which contributes to your longer term aims and which you can draw on during interviews. The whole rite of passage 'I went travelling to see the world' thing can be interpreted in many (and not always positive) ways.


Well for jobs, it's a tough choice. I know I'm interested working in foreign policy or international relations so that technically means working for the government, an IGO or NGO. I wouldn't mind doing that. There are some entry-level jobs to apply for, but they are few and far between. Regarding post-grad programs, I am interested in international relations or security studies-- we have some good programs at public universities in California but the action is more or less in Washington DC. I'm against taking out any loans to study out there, so I planned on looking into some scholarships or full-ride programs (though I'd have to sign my life away for a few years, I wouldn't mind that.) The one year deadline is just a self-imposed deadline to keep myself accountable by taking the next step to higher education or getting a tangible job that pays, as I am currently living at home and would prefer to be on my own.

I have done a lot of traveling considering where I come from, some potential employers smile upon traveling abroad. However, they prefer "off the beaten path" travel experience in more austere countries, unlike where I have internationally traveled before.
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