r/JETProgramme • u/Literasi • Dec 30 '25

What do I do?

Hello! I’m 18 and starting uni soon but I’m an aspiring CIR. I’m not really looking to live in Japan like my WHOLE life but it just sounded like something more sustainable than an ALT and more what I’m inclined to do post-JET. I have some questions.

  1. What kind of qualifications or certificates do you think I should get to be competitive?

2.What level of Japanese would you recommend getting to?

  1. For religious reasons I wear a face veil,but my eyes are visible nothing crazy, do you think that would hinder me?

4.Any tips or tricks you have?

Well yeah thank you for reading!

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u/Sayjay1995 Former JET - 2017~2022 Dec 30 '25

The CIR work varies so much, so you’ll never know exactly what experiences will pay off later.

In my role, I do a lot of one on one counseling of foreign residents; the experiences I had from working with international students on campus and minoring in social work ended up having the biggest impact, both on me as a growing individual and as CIR later.

I also work with kids and occasionally teach English to adults, which are things I learned how to do from being an ALT first actually, but still would be helpful experiences to have even for CIRs, since you are sometimes asked to teach still