Last time I covered the initial stages of your application up until the part where you’re actually accepted. Now comes the hard and tedious bit; getting your documentation in order. You’re gonna want a convenient place to photocopy or print for this step because you’ll be going through a lot of paper and copying everything in triplicate.
These are the documents that you’ll need to get:
1) Copy of birth certificate
2) Police background check
3) Copy of degree conferred
4) Sealed university transcripts that show your GPA/WAM
5) TESOL/TEFL/CELTA certificate
6) All the documents EPIK needs you to fill out and sign
This is the vital part. Documents 1-3 need to be notarised, that’s notarised, not certified but notarised by a notary official. A JP is not sufficient here. If you Google “notaries (location)” you’ll find a list (they’re all solicitors) and they should be charging you about $50 per document. If you live in the North Shore I can recommend a nice Korean solicitor.
Once you have these three documents notarised, you’ll need to then make a trip to your nearest apostille department. For Sydney, this is the Department of Foreign Affairs. You will need to give them more money for this service. In the end, documents 1-3 alone will probably cost you in the area of $300 in total. Hope you’ve got money saved up somewhere!
For document 4), my university (UNSW) didn’t offer transcripts that featured a WAM on them. Thanks a lot for nothing UNSW you motherf….ahem. I had to get faculty specific transcripts that showed my WAM and convince my coordinator that they could be correctly cross referenced with my sealed transcripts. Oh yeah, a copy of your transcripts will cost money too, oh joy.
Meanwhile, while you’re doing all this, it’s time to start finding a place that can give you a TESOL/TEFL/CELTA. You can go cheap, you can go expensive. My personal belief is that I may want to do this as a job back home in Sydney so I want a decent, nationally recognised award. A friend I know found her course on Groupon for $60. Personally I think that’s a little too cheap but hey, whatever you need to get the job done for EPIK.
Once you’ve gathered your pack of documents, and believe me, there will be a lot of paper everywhere so have paperclips and bulldog clips and folders and sleeves ready to sort everything out, it’s time to mail them to Seoul. I wouldn’t cheap out here, especially after all the hard work you’ve done to get these documents in order. You don’t want them to be lost enroute to Korea. Pay for courier/next day delivery and inform your coordinator as to when they can expect the paperwork.
If all goes well and they like the look of all your paperwork, it’s time to start looking for flights (once orientation dates have been confirmed) and to start packing and saying goodbye to everyone.
So that’s it! Whilst I’m sure this might sound simple, there are many pitfalls along the way, some obvious, some not obvious at all. Luckily EPIK will give you about 2 months to get everything sorted out so you will have plenty of time to sort out any issues.
If you’re interested in getting to Korea to teach, EPIK is probably one of the most straight forward and legitimate ways to get here. Good luck!
Man Goes To Teach 