MMoving to Japan

Advice regarding a friend’s desperate attempt to stay in Japan.

  • June 18, 2025

Hello everyone. This is a bit of a different one as I'm looking for advice regarding a friend who is currently in Japan. She fell in love with the country and together we visited it twice for about a month. When we came back, she enrolled in a college that let her study abroad in Japan for a year. The goal was trying to make connections and figure out how to permanently stay, which seemed impossible to me given I know Associates Degrees aren't worth a dime outside of the USA. My suggestion was coming back after a year to finish up her Bachelor's, since I believe those are the minimum requirements for a work visa iirc? Still a low chance of ever being hired. I looked into the JET Program, which has a Bachelor's Degree as a minimum requirement. Looking into it more, and apparently sometimes, they'll even assist you with getting another job within the country. Outside of their program. I felt it would be a suitable direction to try for if her plan to get something through study abroad didn't work.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't work out. The problem is, instead of coming back and going the JET route, she chose to drop out and applied and was accepted into a Language School. I did some research, and it doesn't seem like this direction would work either. She then said she'd try and hit N2 or 1 and start college over in Japan for a degree there, but that seems like a fools errand. She studied in a competitive field, and I'm sure Japan is more likely to hire their own. I think the most realistic choice of action would be going for JET or risk coming back to the USA depressed after failing to get anything after spending so long in Language School, and dealing with what I could imagine is a logistic nightmare when attempting to apply for Japanese colleges.

She doesn't have the best family life and is often detached and miserable here, she'd honest to God would rather be poor and scraping by in Japan, rather than here. When she approached them about going away to college years ago, instead of being supportive they told her she'd have to still pay rent when she leaves. Her therapist is no help either. She said her Therapist supported her plans and I didn't fully believe her at first, so I sat in on one of her online meetings with them and they surprisingly did agree with the plan with a "it doesn't hurt to try" sort of mindset to her answers. But in the long-term if things do go wrong, I can't imagine how all that stagnation and time wasted could effect a person.

I think it's more or less a dangerous lookout and thought I'd reach out to people smarter than me for advice given how much this relies on Japan, and properly give her a reality check. Or a way to achieve her goal without going down a destructive path.

Uh sorry if this isn't right for this sort of form, but I thought I'd try.

by Roromona

20 comments

  1. I’m not quite sure what the question is. 

    Yes, your friend needs a bachelors degree for a work visa. 10 years of specific, relevant work experience can be substituted in some cases. 

    If she could manage to get N2 before her language school term is over she could apply to Japanese universities— but is her language currently at a level where that is achievable? And of course, that is a pricey route— paying for two years of language school and then four years of college with no access to student loans, no scholarships, etc. How is she paying for all of this?

  2. I’d advise her to return to school in the United States and finish her Bachelor’s Degree then apply for JET, ALT, or regular kaishain jobs.

  4. After attending the language school, she can consider applying for a course in the healthcare field in Japan. Universities also offer scholarship opportunities, and being in Japan makes it easier to do research. I recommend that while she’s there, she starts visiting universities and talking to academic advisors, so she can begin planning for the long term!

  6. Sorry this is long FYI, but I think it’s important info.

    Your friend is going to need a bachelors degree (or 10 years of work experience in a particular field) to get a work visa. She can try to do a bachelors in Japan, but that’ll usually require at least N2 which will take the full 2 years of language school which will be expensive on top of paying for a bachelors. There’s some unis who offer bachelors programs in English, but even still she’ll need to find a way to pay for it and Japanese universities don’t really do full ride scholarships.

    For a student visa, whether it’s language school or university, you need to provide proof of familial support like that’s a requirement to get the CoE, so she’s going to need her parents support by providing info that they have the funds to support her regardless.

    I think dropping out and going to language school without having finished her bachelors was a bad idea because that’s just going to delay the inevitable of her having to go back to the U.S. which is just going to make her feel worse.

    She really should go back and finish her bachelors in the States and during that time really work on her career plans for Japan as well as her own mental health and work through some of the problems she’s dealing with. My first real job in Japan was working with career switchers with 95% being foreigners. A lot of them (me included tbh) came to Japan very similar to your friend, just trying to get out of a bad situation and being in Japan made them happy, and have lived in Japan 5-10+ years. By the time they got to me they felt stuck and hadn’t really made progress in doing anything outside of English teaching/menial jobs and regretted not really thinking through their plans or dealing with their problems. This is actually such a common problem with a lot of foreigners who go there. I see your friend being on that path if she doesn’t actually start thinking her plans through.

    Also, I don’t say this to be mean, I actually say this out of a lot of compassion because I understand where she’s coming from and have seen the consequences.

  7. It’s okay to give your friend your honest opinion, but you should also respect and support their choices and efforts. Give your friend space to try, grow, and learn. Plans may or may not work out, but it’s not for you to judge them a failure or waste of time. It may be a great learning experience for all you know, however things shake out. To put another way, have faith in your friend. Your post gives me a sense that your concern may express as controlling or hovering behavior.

  9. If she’s fine being kind of poor then I suggest finishing the Bachelor’s back home and then go for JET and study the language on top of that trying to break into another industry through connections / luck. Sometimes or rather usually in life you can’t have what you want right now and need to be patient. 

  10. I’ll be honest, she desperately wants to stay in Japan but seems to quit everything she does? Like she knows what the paths are, but if she can’t discipline herself enough to do a bachelors even, why would a country like Japan want her?

    The truth is immigration is a privilege that countries allow when they think it will add value for them.

  11. There are some colleges and senmongakkou that are mainly for foreigners and are usually cheaper.But it’s difficult to know if that’s a solid plan because if by highly competitive field you mean doctor or lawyer,bc that’s one thing(or manga, since we are in Japan).But depending on the profession she might be ok.

  12. I tried clinging to staying. I’m currently saving up to return next year. She’s best off just finishing the degree and then going for language school. I realize now I was better off returning with a lot more money and in a better position than having constant stress and anxiety scraping by. I never attended university whatsoever, so Japanese university isn’t nearly as bad of an option, especially with the issue of debt if I went here. It’s a huge waste to be 1 year from graduation and starting again in a foreign language instead.  

  13. Your friend appears to have fallen in love with being on holiday here and that is an entirely different situation to studying / working here full time. Also, feelings of detachment and misery don’t just suddenly disappear if you move here; the stress and hardships of relocating here and then actually having to live here (especially in the early months) can be debilitating, especially to someone thats already prone to things like depression. I do not believe she has given any real consideration to what it would be like to be poor and scraping by in an unfamiliar, foreign culture with no family or friends around.

    However if she’s still determined to go through with this then finishing her Bachelor’s is categorically the most important thing she can do. I cannot stress that enough. She isn’t going to have the funds saved up to do language school and 4 years of university here, correct? Nothing can guarantee her a job, especially not an Associate’s degree and two years at a language school but at least with a Bachelor’s she has a safety net. You said she enrolled to finish it and was even on a course that would have resulted in a year abroad in Japan and imo this would have been absolutely perfect. It would have given her the opportunity for a more realistic experience of living here and it would have resulted in her getting her Bachelor’s. It’s concerning that she instead dropped out.

    I don’t want to be too judgemental but it sounds like she’s either not giving proper consideration to the realities of how best to go about living here or she just doesn’t understand them.

    And as I mentioned before; experiencing a foreign country while on vacation is not the same experience you’d have while living there full time. This is especially true for Japan.

  14. Recently people have been getting sponsored to teach English with an Associates Degree.

  15. The easiest way would be to marry a Japanese or a guy with permanent residence visa.

  16. Unfortunately, sometimes we can’t just have what we want. It sounds like she needs to finish up her undergrad and find a career that will help her get to Japan. When I was young and in my early 20s, I watched the TV show skins from the UK and I swore that I was going to go and live my best life in Great Britain and be partying and what not and I feel like this is what your friend is kind of acting like being whimsical in thought. Realistically, she needs to go back home to the states get her education completed by the career and then try to make her move to Japan. Once she finishes her bachelors degree. She can very easily get a job at any language school anywhere on the country but it’s just the cold heart truth that unless somebody marries her to prevent her from having to go home or something like that, she will have to go back to the states and start over.

  17. Tbh your friend sounds like they have a pipedream but cant commit to the work needed to come here. Lots of red flags here in how she would be able to deal with long term life here versus her fantasy. Japan is not the easiest to live without a support network and it sounds like she needs additional mental support which Japan is pretty poor at. My advice is they take a couple of years to have a solid background to come here or they unfortunately give up.

  18. I don’t why people, who clearly have mental problems and not country problems, pick Japan as their savior. A country where mental issues are completely taboo and non-conformity isn’t really encouraged overall.

    Your friend thinks Japan is the solution because it’s ~different~, but they will be just as miserable here once the novelty has worn off.

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