I was having brunch with an old high-school friend of mine, fall semester, 1999. We would both be graduating the next May, and were both dreading the end of our status as professional students. It wasn’t a bad time to be finishing school; the dot-com thing was a boom, not a bubble, and I’d heard of many finding promising careers at start-ups, or at places like Arthur-Anderson. Still, the working world seemed daunting and I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself after graduation.

I have two distinct memories from that brunch: first, that I had ordered a plate of waffles (strawberry); and second, that she told me about how her boyfriend was applying to the JET Program, to teach English in Japan. “That sounds interesting,” I said to my friend, “but I don’t know anything about Japan, let alone Japanese.” My friend told me it didn’t matter, and suggested that I should go to an orientation meeting on campus, and so I did.

As I found out at the meeting, the requirements for the JET Program are quite open. The major prerequisite is having a university degree. For the Assistant Language Teacher position (ALT), of which over 90% of JET participants are employed as, there is no specific requirement for Japanese proficiency, nor is there a requirement for a teaching credential. Of course, these qualifications are helpful if you have them, but not having them does not preclude you from applying.

In retrospect, being the green tea drinking, Totoro admiring person I am now, it’s funny that I knew so little about Japan when I first learned about the JET Program. However, I’m sure I was not alone in my ignorance; the recruiting philosophy of the program stresses youth, and as such, the pool of applicants is full of recent college graduates as uncertain of their future plans as I was. As one JET Program website announces:

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme invites young college and university graduates from overseas to participate in international exchange and foreign language education throughout Japan. Established in 1987, the programme has earned a high reputation, both in Japan and overseas, for its efforts in human and cultural exchanges, and has become one of the largest cultural exchange programmes in Japan.

One might question the prudence of sending so many people to a foreign country to teach without requiring teaching experience or knowledge of the country’s language. Indeed, in my first few weeks in Japan as an ALT, I struggled pathetically in the classroom, and without doubt, a more trained teacher with Japanese fluency would have struggled less. But as I heard from the presenter at that first orientation meeting on campus, and as I would hear from the many JET Program alumni I would meet later, the JET Program is not just about teaching English. The job of an ALT doesn’t end with the last bell, I was told, and as much as ALTs are hired to teach English, they are hired as cultural ambassadors, to be immersed the Japanese culture, and to share their own as well. For someone like me, who still couldn’t get over graduating out of studenthood, the prospect of being immersed in Japanese culture was very alluring, a chance at learning something every day.

By the end of fall semester 1999, I was busy putting together my JET application package due the first week of December. With finals week looming, I found myself only marginally interested in studying for my finals, more worried about writing my application essay, explaining why I should be teaching in a country I knew so little about. As I eventually wrote: “I look forward to being in an environment where currently simple tasks such as giong to the grocery store or taking the train will be adventures in themselves. I look forward to teaching young people (myself included) a new language. I see teaching and the JET Program as a heightened extension of my studies at university-an opportunity not just to continue my learning process, but to share it with others.”