Jen Quirk

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What position do you hold at Teach Away? What has been your career path so far?

I'm currently the Digital Marketing Coordinator. After graduating university, I worked on contract for a small business consultancy, but realized I wasn’t ready for a “career” and took a detour to teach in South Korea for a year. I landed my job with Teach Away after my year abroad.

What inspired you to teach abroad?

I taught English in Seoul, South Korea, and had the most amazing time. I went for the opportunity to travel, explore part of the world that I’d never visited before, and pay off some student debt.

What are some exciting new projects that Teach Away is working on?

So many projects! This has been one of our biggest years yet, and we're recruiting teachers for international schools in more countries than ever before, including Mexico, Venezuela and Cyprus.

All these exciting new destinations give us lots of room for creativity on the marketing team. We've also just launched a brand new project, an interactive online tutoring platform, Skooli.

In your opinion, what's one of the biggest misconceptions people have about the teach abroad industry?

A lot of people seem to think that teaching abroad is like a vacation but that's not usually the case - you're there to work. During my year in Korea, I only had 5 days vacation, not including public holidays. I definitely worked hard, but it was totally worth it for the experience, and the money I saved allowed me to go backpacking through South East Asia for four months.

Which teach abroad destination is most underrated? Conversely, which is most overrated?

This is an impossible question for me to answer because I’ve only taught in one country! If anything, teaching abroad itself is underrated - I think everyone should do it.