Switching from teaching English in Japan to working in IT

Teaching English in Japan these past five years has been a very fun and rewarding experience. I got to teach really entertaining and well comported middle schoolers, make lots of foreign and Japanese friends, and met the love of my life. Japan has been very good to me and, I must say, I've fallen in love with the country. But as much as I love life there, it's time to come back home to take care of my ageing parents and disabled sister. 

I must admit, though, I wasn't planning on coming home with no tech certifications as I was planning on getting my CompTIA A+ certification before returning, however, my familys situation, which I might get into in a later post, wound up expediting the whole process.

So, now that I've managed to train my parents on how to properly care for my physically disabled sister, I've been studying for and passing Certification exams. I recently passed my Comptia A+ 1001 exam. Seeing as I don't have a job right now, I was able to pass the first half in about ten days, though I had already been studying for said exam during the past year, albeit, little by little.  I currently have my sights set on passing the A+ 1002 exam in the next week or so and then starting to study for the Sec+ exam.

The reason I'm aiming for the A+ and the Sec+ in particular, is I don't have any experience working in IT, and one of the companies I'll be applying for is looking for people with these certifications. In addition, I'd also like to get my CCNA certification once I start working at an IT company.

Although I've always found tech to be a fascinating subject, I never really considered getting a job in the subject, mainly because I thought my low-level skills and interests wouldn't lead to job. As I told my friend, Nick, who was a former IT project manager at a well known company in Canada, "The only tech experience I have is scripting a Language Immersion program back in 2011, a context inclusive batch digital flashcard creator, building computers, SSHing, WoL, and creating VMs". I realized as he raised his eyebrows and patted my shoulder, "Will, you should get A+ certified and try getting a job in Tech. It's right up your ally!"

And boy was he right! I've been really enjoying studying for these exams. I've always had a very DIY mentality when something would break around the house, fixing things like stuck windows (glass not the OS!)  and troubleshooting our internet network problems by googling the answers, was second nature to me.

I've looked at online employment agencies and it looks like there are a lot of openings for Help Desk , and many other Tier 1 positions. Hopefully I'll get my foot in the door before my emergency savings from Japan dries up. I'm shooting for the end of November to pass all my certification exams, build up my VM homelab, get Active Directory working on my Windows Server 2016, and learn to use PowerShell to automate tasks. 

Thanks a bunch Nick