Hooray! It’s May!! That means there’s exactly 3 months till departure! Well, not really. More like three months and one day. Either way, it’s exciting!
I don’t have much to offer for this entry. I just wanted to share my thoughts on something I read that bothered me. There was a post somewhere that someone asked for advice on getting into the JET Program. I said that passion for international exchange was probably the biggest deal but a current JET threw it back in my face saying that it’s just chance luck simply because a few bad apples get in and just party all the time.
To say that getting into the JET Program is chance luck is insulting. I worked hard to get into this program and for someone to allude that the only reason I got in was because of chance and luck is demeaning every little thing I’ve done to prepare and apply. Not just me, every other passionate applicant out there.
Yeah, there are bad apples that slip through the cracks. But that happens everywhere. Are we to say that each process is simply a random toss of the dice? No. Those bad apples that slipped through were really good bullshit artists. They figured out a way to bullshit the system, interviewed really well, and got shortlisted (or upgraded from Alternate). That doesn’t mean that the JET Program is a randomized chance at opportunity.
No one is going to put down on their applications that they want to drink every night, spend all day on Facebook, and not give any shit about immersing themselves in the local community. They write what the JET Program tells them to write for their essay, put down what the JET Program wants them to put down on their applications, and do enough interview research to get a feel of what to expect to successfully pass their interviews. They just had an ulterior motive that they knew how to contain and not let the world know.
It doesn’t mean the process is random.
To say that is insulting to those who have legitimately tried and made it.
/soapbox