October and November 2011: The JET application became available in late October with a deadline of December 2nd. There are several components to the application: A general application asking about your background, as well as any teaching experience you have; a statement of purpose, which is a two page essay where you must write not only why you want to do the Program and what you can bring to the table, but also about your personal interests and motivations for going to Japan (a lot to pack into two pages); two letters of reference from employers or professors; and other random stuff like college transcripts and a medical history questionnaire.
Essentially, anyone can apply for JET who is a graduate of a four-year university or college and can speak English fluently. But in order to actually make it in to the program, you've got to beat out some fierce competition and that means making yourself appear as professional, able, and personable as possible both on paper and in your interview. I can safely say that I never thought over and revised any writing assignment I had in college more than my statement of purpose essay. I spent a good three weeks writing and revising the two-page, double-spaced essay and asked family members, friends, professors, and tutors at my college's writing center to read it and tell me what they thought. After all that work, it was probably the best thing I have ever written or ever will write :) Even so, people with awesome applications and essays get rejected every year simply because someone else had just a little bit more to offer than them. So it's essential to make yourself stand out (in a good way) as much as possible.
November 25th 2011: I mailed my application to the JET Program offices in Washington D.C.! It was such a great feeling to have it done with, although I did spend the next week worrying that it wouldn't get there before the deadline. Another random thing about applying for JET: I've been to the post office more in the last 6 months than I probably have in my entire life. Just goes along with the process!
February 2nd 2012: After 2 months or so, I got an email notifying me that I advanced to the second stage of the application process- the interview. I was so incredibly excited when I found out- my hands were shaking!
Over the next few weeks I prepared for the interview as much as I could by writing out answers to questions that I knew I would most likely be asked, and practising with friends and teachers. It definitely helped me for the real thing!
February 25th 2012: I interviewed for the ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) position in Chicago (the nearest Japanese consulate to me up in Wisconsin) on a cold Saturday. It was a long day, as I took the round-trip bus from Madison- about 8 hours total. Before the interview, I got a chance to talk to some other hopeful JETs in the waiting room and it definitely helped to calm my nerves and relax. Another thing that took the edge off was the pep-talk we received from a couple of the former JETS who were in charge of making sure the interviews ran smoothly. One of them gave us a short talk saying it wouldn't be as bad as we were thinking and to just try our best. Then she made us jump up and down and get pumped up before we went in. The other guy even did a couple somersaults on the floor in front of us to get us laughing. It definitely worked! I felt pretty relaxed and confident going into the interview.
The interview went pretty well, as far as I could tell. Each applicant interviews with three people affiliated with either the program or with the local Japanese community. It lasts about 20 minutes. My interview panel consisted of two former JETS and a woman who's job I'm not sure of but who conducted the Japanese portion of my interview. The interview went much like any other job interview, I think (I haven't had many at this point). The two former JETS (both young guys in their 20s) asked me about why I wanted to do the program and why I wanted to go to Japan. They asked me about my tutoring experiences and how I would handle hypothetical situations in the classroom. Also, they asked about my placement requests (each applicant can request whether they would like to live in a rural, suburban, or urban setting and they can also request up to 3 prefectures they would like to live in). I requested a suburban placement and my prefecture requests were Hyogo, Wakayama, and Okayama. I requested these three because they are all prefectures with some coastline (I was hoping for somewhere near the ocean), in the southern region of the country, and close to Osaka, where much of my mom's family lives. My first choice was Awaji-shima in Hyogo Prefecture. Awaji-shima is a beautiful island that connects two of the main islands of Japan, Honshu and Shikoku. I went there for a short trip once with my family and it was absolutely beautiful. But of course, I would have been happy going anywhere!
The other interviewer, a Japanese woman, asked me some questions in Japanese at the end of the interview. This isn't done to gather information from the interviewee but rather to see what their Japanese speaking ability is. Some JETS are also asked to read a short paragraph aloud in their interview. Japanese is not required at all to do the JET Program (probably should have mentioned that earlier haha) but your Japanese ability or lack thereof is used to determine your placement. After all, someone who doesn't speak any Japanese probably shouldn't be put in a tiny town with no other foreigners or fluent English-speakers in it. Anyway, she asked me some fairly easy questions; clarifying that my mom is Japanese and asking where she is from, asking me whether I think I'll make a good teacher, and asking me why I chose Awaji-shima in Hyogo Prefecture as my first preferred placement. Overall pretty easy questions, but I tend to get easily flustered when speaking in Japanese so sometimes easy words or phrases completely escape me. But I did alright and just tried to keep a smile on my face the whole time.
One random question that they asked me was what three things I would take with me to represent American culture. I had looked over lists of potential JET interview questions like this and had actually prepared an answer to this particular one (Thank God! Otherwise I probably would have stammered out some ridiculous answer). The first item I said was a large map of the United States that perhaps had pictures of food and culture connected to particular regions so that the kids could see how diverse America really is. Then I said I would try and give more specific examples from the states I've spent most of my time in, Minnesota and Wisconsin. For Wisconsin, I said I would bring a stuffed Bucky Badger. Bucky is the mascot of my college, UW-Madison (represent!) but is also a symbol of the Badger State pride that Wisconsin has.
Finally, I said my third item would be a picture of the Minnesota State Fair as it is a really big deal in our state and represents our state's culture.
Then one of the interviewers asked "How does it symbolize Minnesota culture?" I wasn't really expecting that so I sort of stumbled over the answer (in truth, I was thinking that it's just an excuse for people to stuff themselves silly on food-on-a-stick. Which it is, and it's amazing). I said something like "It's one of the largest state fairs in the country and is just a good opportunity for people to come together over food and community and just have a good time. Minnesota is a big agricultural state so the fair displays a lot of that in its exhibits." Then I tried to explain the Princess Kay of the Milky Way butter sculptures. For those of you who don't know, Princess Kay is the winner of the Minnesota Dairy Princess Program put on by the Minnesota Dairy Association (stole that straight from Wikipedia). One of the traditions at the State Fair is that all of the Princess Kay contestants and the winner have their faces carved into huge butter blocks. The have to sit in these huge coolers for hours to pose for the sculptures and fair-goers can go watch. It's pretty cool.
Anyway, back to the interview. I tried to explain the Princess Kay and how carving her likeness into butter is just a cool cultural representation of the agriculture of our state. Of course, my real answer was nowhere near that smooth and after realizing that my interviewers were staring at me with amused looks on their faces, I realized how ridiculous a face sculpted into butter must sound to someone who hasn't seen it. Besides that little hiccup though, the interview went great!
Wow that was a long post! I think I'll split this us up into two posts... stay tuned to hear about my acceptance into JET, my placement, and all the preparations I've done so far to get ready to leave!
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