Hi folks!
It may be early to ask this question, since my Japanese skills are still very basic (I'm working on it, currently at 1130 Kanji in my Heisig RTK SRS deck and starting my listening/vocab). But anyway, here's the situation:
I've recently turned 32, and I have no university/college degree (basically I live in a 3rd world country and only now I have the time and funds to actually study something).
I currently work at the workforce management dept. in one of the largest technology companies in the world, and recently I've started learning how to write sql queries to analyse data from our database, so I'm starting to become interested in IT, especially about programming, maintenance and analysis of data (I would also like to test the waters in coding apps, just bought a few coding courses, but I digress). But, since still I have no degree, higher positions than my current one aren't really open to me. Well, since I always wanted to leave my country and study abroad, I'm considering my future career options right now.
So, when it comes to studying in Japan, I've been doing a bit of research about how to actually do it, but the part about how job hunting goes has been really scarce, at least from what I could find online. I've been considering enrolling in a Japanese Language School, get my JP level to N1 or as close as possible to it, and then enroll in a vocational school.
My question would be, how realistic is it to find a job in Japan afterwards, considering I'll be around 37 and not very experienced by the time I finish an IT course? Is age an issue? I'd like to stay and work there if I feel like I have adapted well to living in the country, and I wouldn't want to waste years studying and getting a diploma just to be kicked out afterwards. So, is it realistic to land a job (any job, not necessarily a good one) with a 専門士 (not a 高度専門士) at that age? In my current job I do write simple sql queries, and my company is very, very high profile, which could carry a name for my resume, but I'm not sure how much that would count for experience in the field, especially because what I do in that aspect is very basic, and I might end up finding coding jobs in different languages anyway.
A few more details:
* I've mainly been eyeing 2 or 3 year courses on information processing and similar specialties, so I'd ideally start the Language School in April 2027, the Vocational school in April 2029, and graduate in March 2031~32. I've found info on job hunting season in the vocational schools happening around November in your last year, but that was blurry.
* I'm self-funded and willing to work part-time to pay for my monthly expenses. I can't work remotely in my current company and there aren't higher positions available for my current level of expertise anyway.
* I've been considering moving to Japan in 2027, by then I'm projecting I'll land in Japan with around 6 million Yen saved to fund my studies without having to worry too much about not being able to pay for tuition. I don't think that's enough for a bachelor's degree, though, and there's a whole other process to apply to universities, so that's why I'm eyeing Semon Gakko.
* I'm not a native English speaker, so JET is out of the question. Not a Nikkei either, so no instant work visa, a student visa is the only one I could get right now.
That's it. Thanks for reading this wall of text, I hope we can get some info on this topic.
by isthismytripcode