Greetings.
As the title says I am finishing my English philology degree next semester, in july next year, and I am at crossroads on what path to follow next. I also did my country's equivalent to superior vocational training in software development and about a year of unpaid internships through said vocational training back in 2018
I want to live in Japan but I also want to have freedom to visit my parents outside of vacation periods, who while healthy and socially active are in their late 60s (68 next year) and I want to be able to visit them. And I doubt an English teaching job would give me the chance to work remotely. I also realized that while I do like Linguistics, I enjoy coding far more than teaching to people.
My first idea was to do a Master of IT in Japan (with a MEXT scholarship if possible) and gain work experience in the 6 month between finishing my degree and starting the master. With this I would end up as a 30 year old with at best few months of experience but qualify for the HSP visa, without depending on any bonus points from the company itself (doing a master gives 10 points, another 10 for doing it in japan and another 10 doing it in one of the universities that receive extra points would put my total score at 70, ignoring the salary bonus or the bonus points you can get by some companies like small companies which might let me reach the 80 points), however I heard that its really hard for a 30 year old to find a job with no work experience, even after being freshly graduated from the Master's degree.
The other option I thought was searching for a full time IT job right after finishing my career when I am 27 and try to find an university that would offer to do a master part time (I dont know if that is even a thing in japanese universities, but I guess it is like in most countries). In that case I wonder, how hard is it to find an IT job as a foreigner fresh grad from an unrelated degree with no prior work experience? Should I do a bootcamp in that case or are they a waste of money. I do have the chance to ask for the work holiday visa, if that would help my chances to land a job. I also will have a lot of free time in my last semester so I would have a lot of time to refresh and improve my coding skills and do things that improve my chances like making a github for job hunting or other things (any advise on that would be welcome)
Personally I would prefer to do the first option if I manage to get the scholarship, but i that would put me at terrible odds of finding a job compared to searching it as soon as I finish my degree, I'd rather find it now.
by Professional_Fix8359