Life is about change and sometimes it’s more welcome than others. Some changes are simply slight adjustments to our daily routines. Other times, life calls for a total overhaul. Your local grocery store may discontinue your favorite canned soup. Or you may be forced to change jobs, move cities, end a relationship. But sometimes a daring few choose these changes. Change is what shapes our lives and shapes us as people.
Training in Costa Rica
At 23 I was a well-oiled cog in America’s workforce. I had completed my undergraduate degree and patched together a full-time work schedule as a waitress/secretary/baker. But I wanted something more long-term and ideally something more fulfilling. With a little help from Google, I found the Máximo Nivel TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification program and decided to shake things up.
After a whirlwind of four wonderful weeks in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica getting TEFL-certified, I packed my bags for China. Even though I was a little bit rusty, I had been learning Chinese at university. So I boarded a plane to Shanghai with 3 years of classroom Mandarin and a TEFL Certificate under my belt: enormous life change #1.
Shanghai to Tianjin
Shanghai is massive. I spent five weeks there being trained by the company I was working for and each day the city chewed me up and spit me out. It was exhausting and I was overwhelmed. Luckily, after my training I was transferred to a still big but smaller city in the north—Tianjin. It was more my speed and I was able to find my footing there more easily.
For eight months I worked as an English teacher in a kindergarten and it was everything I could have wanted. My students were adorable, the hours good, the pay even better and my Chinese was improving day by day. But I was still looking for a missing piece. “What’s wrong with me?” I thought. I had left home to find a more stable career in which I could excel and I had done that!
But American opportunism knocked nimbly at my door. “Is this enough? Are you learning anything new?” it cooed. Of course the answer was yes. I was learning a lot. Aside from enjoying my new career, I had learned to make dumplings, navigate the subway system, scour the best markets and even take exercise classes in Chinese. But the voice was not appeased.
Private Tutoring Sessions
I then transitioned into individually tutoring adults: enormous life change #2. It started with a friend of a friend who was going to study in Australia and wanted to practice conversational English. Then it grew to three regular students which I met with twice a week. I was earning plenty of money and my days were pretty full but I began to realize how much more I enjoyed working with adults. Sure, they weren’t as cute and the compensation wasn’t as good. But none of that seemed to matter. They possessed what I had been missing: ambition and an excitement for the unknown.
I had become part of something greater; we were learning together. My adult students never ceased to surprise me with their dedication. Each would show up with a list of words they had heard and wanted me to explain. And they had good questions. Why do we say The Netherlands or The USA but not The China? When is the correct time to use a comma? They challenged me and it motivated me to become a better teacher.
As the end of my contract was approaching, change began to root its way back into my life—unimposing at first but impending, like the Grim Reaper. I had a decision to make: continue teaching or apply for graduate school. Both were appealing for different reasons and in the end I decided to return to The USA to determine exactly what and where I wanted to study: enormous life change #3.
Graduate School
So I found myself back in the reassuring arms of Google, this time researching master’s programs around the globe. Because of the love I had developed for language and culture, I chose to study International Communication and settled on a university in Holland. I wondered if I was crazy to have given up a comfortable job for another sentence of loan payments and papers. But my teaching experience had led me there and I quickly realized that I was meant to be in that very place and program.
Teaching in China was a formative experience and I would never change a minute of it. But being an educator is what pulled me out of China in the end. I was yearning to continue my own education as well. Perhaps I will return to teaching later or continue my education even further. All I know is that even though change can be scary, it’s often worth the growing pains. Get out there and create change for yourself!