Post: #1

Not sure if this is the right Sub-Forum but the only other one fitting was "Everything else" but I decided to post it in here.

I am an 18 year old living in central Europe and can speak about 3/4 languages(German,English,Slovakian and a little bit of french).
I will be done with school soon but to be honest I have no clue what would be the best path for me to take.
Right now the subject that interests me the most is philosophy but with that you obviously don't have a lot of job options apart from becoming a teacher which I would definitely not like to be.
Other then that I feel lik IT is something useful and a field that pays well but I am not sure about me being able to do that for the rest of my life.Especially if I want to experience life and not get a job,family,kids and die...
Recently(about 8 months ago) I started lifting seriously and made quite a bit of progress and when looking back on my life when I was a teenager I was mostly playing games,not social at all,etc. and in the future I would like to change that drastically,basically being muscular,making good money,going to partys,etc.(as unrealistic as it may sound)
Also after I finish school I will have around 5k$,and I can do with them what I want so that may be another factor in deciding what to do...


Should I take some time off and travel?(what I thought about is maybe visit america for a couple of months or maybe a year?)
Or should I apply for an university straight ahead and if yes in which field?


Basically looking for some suggestions what would be the best choice to do.If you were in my position or if you would be the same age as me what advice would you give yourself?

Post: #2

There must be some interests or goals that you have, even if not fully developed, which could help guide you here. You have left the question very broad. What do you want to gain experience in? I assume you have some money based on your post.

Post: #3

(12-13-2015 11:10 AM)offthereservation Wrote:  There must be some interests or goals that you have, even if not fully developed, which could help guide you here. You have left the question very broad. What do you want to gain experience in? I assume you have some money based on your post.

Yes after school I will have about 5000$.
I will edit the post with a bit more information.

Post: #4

Just a suggestion:

Take the gap year (or half year) to travel, gain some experiences and meet new people. It is good for many reasons but it may also help you learn about your passions or interests. Maybe you might meet some people along the way and exchange interesting ideas that can positively contribute to your future. The possibilities are endless, plus you have a bit of cash saved up which is already a plus.

Post: #5

If you can sign up for any international work, it's a good way to delay the decision for a year.

Plus a lot of folks go to Uni for that reason. It's sometimes a dubious investment but if you do an engineering/business double concentration there's very little you can't do.

Post: #6

Go MechE and you can pretty much do anything with a decent GPA.

Post: #7

I advise against the gap year for two reasons:

1) Every person I know who did it, came back as a lazy fuck and did not accomplish anything for the rest of his life.
They lived a one year holiday, spending all their savings or their parent's money. Once they returned, they were too lazy to study or work hard. These are the kind of people who are still working a minimum wage job in a bar, restaurant or call center at age 30.

2) You've got no years to lose if you want to build a big career.
I lost three years, two through a bad study choice and one through a combination of laziness and health issues. This means that now I am competing against people who are just as smart as I am, have the same amount of relevant experience, but are three years younger. If a recruiter is searching for a candidate for a high profile job, who will he prefer? Right now I sacrifice all my weekends to study and code to compensate for the lost years.

Besides, if you go to uni and work well during the year, you will have two to three months off every summer: enough time to travel.

Follow the advice from Wall Street Playboys: http://wallstreetplayboys.com/what-type-...-you-have/
Determine your type of intelligence and start building a valuable skillset around it.

If you insist on doing the gap year, you might want to contact forum member Raccoonface. I think he's your age and will start a gap year doing volunteer work in Latin America.

Post: #8

Some of the best posts I've read on this topic, wish I had seen them at 18. It says there was 3 parts but ended up being 2 in case you were wondering.

Edit: Well the site is blocked for some reason but you can google the post names and it will come up.

http://krauserpua.com/2012/12/07/your-li...undations/

http://krauserpua.com/2012/12/26/your-li...umulation/

Post: #9

Firstly, well done for doing this research. Few 18 year olds do more than accept the 'automatic path' dictated by their parents and peers. That you have done this is a good omen for your career.

1) On the question of 'should I do a year of travel': probably not. At 18, you aren't really in a position to appreciate it as much. Guys who do the typical 'gap year' at this time just do the standard shoestring backpacking circuit, and don't really achieve much beyond getting drunk and seeing beaches with their own cohort (other young foreigners). I'd go as far as to call it a wasteful mistake.

I'd say the optimum time to do a long tour is mid to late twenties. You're more on women's radar (esp. foreign women's), you have more money to throw around, you're more confident and independent, and you have more life experience and understanding with which to contrast the countries you visit. In this case, travel is very valuable for your development and is well worth doing.

2) On the question of 'should I go to university and what should I study': you should research this in detail. Get a profile of every type of degree you might be interested in studying. Write down the cost of each degree, in time and money. Then write down the benefits, by studying exit outcomes.

If people are graduating with a degree and are remaining unemployed for a sustained length of time, you might want to steer clear. If people are graduating and are rapidly landing jobs with high starting salaries, it could be worth it. Every young man should take heed of the 'PhD checkout clerk' as a dire warning of what happens when you make a mistake on this.

Other things to consider:

• How difficult is it? Difficult degrees to complete (e.g. medicine or engineering) can be valuable because they are more resistant to entry. Easy degrees tend to be worthless. This is no guarantee though - I know a guy who did a 5 year difficult degree who after a long period of unemployment is now a construction worker because there was no demand for his specialty.
• What is the career of graduates in that degree like? For this, it is best to actually ask them. Stress levels, salary levels, bonuses and performance linked pay, opportunity for promotion, working hours, work environment, etc. Go to industry events for the different careers you are interested in (or might be), and talk to everyone there.
• Does it lock you into a career path, or teach you widely applicable skills? For example, a business degree could be useful to you if you later want to start your own business (I hear a law degree can also help). A specialized engineering or medical degree, on the other hand, tends to strongly entrench you into that career (high salary plus lack of transferability).
• Is that career cyclical? For example, dentists have steady demand for their work (even in a recession, people won't just sit on an excruciating tooth ache), but mining engineers are somewhat at the mercy of commodity booms and busts. This aspect basically affects 'how in control of you life you are', which can have psychological implications. The dentists income depends directly on his efforts; the mining engineer not so much.
• Do you have a particular passion? People who follow their passion can end up pushing the boundaries of a field, which can lend itself to monetization opportunities as long as you keep an eye to practical applications.
• Will following that career lead to other problems? This won't necessarily mean you reject that career, but could indicate other precautions you will need to take and plans you will need to make. Using the example of the mining engineer in Australia, you're going to end up in a dust bowl in the middle of nowhere with zero women. You would have to factor that into how your job will tie into your life.
  A software engineer in the San Fran area might run into a milder form of this problem (e.g. bad sex ratio and female quality).
  

3) Read biographies. This is the best source of inspiration that is available. I have an old thread I started when I used to list various winners. /thread-41548.html . You can check some of those guys out as examples. I'd recommend you read at least one biography a week until you've made your decision.

Also I might suggest you gather all this information and draw it up on a huge grid, as Masayoshi Son did. Worked out pretty well for him.

Post: #10

^ is pretty great advice.

------------------

Make a list of different fields that interest you. Start going through their career opportunities in terms of salary, benefits, travel opportunity, preparation time, etc. Cross out the ones that pay shit, are hard to get a job in, take too long, etc. Pick whatever's most interesting from the list left.

My advice is something technical, honestly. You'll have a good job of getting a job in the related field if you do something engineering / computer science related, and you'll also have a good job of getting a business job if you prove you're not socially inept as most hiring desks for jobs like investment banking, strategy consulting, etc. like quantitative people.

Things are going to vary dependent on your country too. I don't know how the market looks for Central Europe, but things like software engineering which pay bank in the US pay pretty awful in Europe from what I've seen.

Post: #11

Other things to consider:

• How difficult is it? Difficult degrees to complete (e.g. medicine or engineering) can be valuable because they are more resistant to entry. Easy degrees tend to be worthless. This is no guarantee though - I know a guy who did a 5 year difficult degree who after a long period of unemployment is now a construction worker because there was no demand for his specialty.
  [/quote]
  
  Was he a petroleum engineer?

Post: #12

Seconding (or thirding) the don't take a gap year advice. Your teens and 20s are for working hard. You should have tons of energy and zero family commitments, which means you can go balls to the wall in building a career or a business. If you do this, you should be on or near easy street by 30 while all the guys who spent their 20s chasing skirts are busy trying to catch up.

Not saying you declare celibacy, but it should be money first/bitches second until you've established yourself.

Post: #13

(12-19-2015 02:30 AM)Peregrine Wrote:  Seconding (or thirding) the don't take a gap year advice. Your teens and 20s are for working hard. You should have tons of energy and zero family commitments, which means you can go balls to the wall in building a career or a business. If you do this, you should be on or near easy street by 30 while all the guys who spent their 20s chasing skirts are busy trying to catch up.

Not saying you declare celibacy, but it should be money first/bitches second until you've established yourself.

Also having this as your primary focus/purpose i.e. something better to do than just chase women, I reckon there's a good chance it'll actually help with the ladies, and is certainly a better attitude to have.

Post: #14

(12-19-2015 02:30 AM)Peregrine Wrote:  Seconding (or thirding) the don't take a gap year advice. Your teens and 20s are for working hard. You should have tons of energy and zero family commitments, which means you can go balls to the wall in building a career or a business. If you do this, you should be on or near easy street by 30 while all the guys who spent their 20s chasing skirts are busy trying to catch up.

Not saying you declare celibacy, but it should be money first/bitches second until you've established yourself.

That model won't work so easily in the United States or Western Europe. Maybe in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world, but in the west, the average man who follows that model will probably just end up at 30 stuck in a matrix with lots of responsibilities and crappy dating options. Unless you're super killing it, a moderately successful, 30yo white collar western man will mostly be left with washed up carouselers, single moms, divorcees, and the fat and the fugly for prospects. Hence, all the 30+ guys on this board going abroad to get their pussy fix or find a marriageable girl.

OP, I say, it's better to leverage your youth, especially in a few years when you can legally hit the bars/clubs. Don't be a total moron and knock someone up or completely fuck your life in some other way, but have fun and get the experiments out of your system while you're still young. Figure out your passions and how you can parlay one of them into making a living out of. Perhaps you'll need to get a university degree for this, but maybe you don't. Start learning Game (if you haven't already) in your free time and use your youth as an advantage to get in front of girls your age and have some fun. You'll learn about yourself, and as long as you don't fuck up and saddle yourself with a bunch of baggage, you'll become a more well-adjusted, poised man as a result.

Post: #15

^ I respectfully disagree.
I see only two reasons why a man would be less attractive at 30yo than at 20yo old:
1) He got fat
2) He was a fraternity or sports star in university

Nearly all 20 yo hotties would rather get fucked by a 30yo attractive guy than by a 20yo attractive guy.
And nearly all marriage or mother worhty girls would rather marry a successful 30yo guy than a 20yo guy.

The men who are left at 30 with the divorcees and fat and ugly women:
1) Do not approach young girls
2) Are unattractive (poor physique, poor dress and grooming, no social skills, no understanding of what wets the pussy)
3) Are unemployed or work a minimum wage job because they pissed away their twenties "partying".

Furthermore I do not understand that people think they should choose between working or studying hard to build a career or partying. If you work/study 5-6 days a week, you can still go out at least one night a week. And if you're in university, you will have 2-3 months of holidays each year. This "partying" or "enjoying your youth" or "seeing the world" is just a synonym for being lazy, sleeping, watching tv, playing video games, jerking off and wasting time on the internet all day long. It's a synonym for wasting your time and your future.

Post: #16

(12-21-2015 12:24 PM)PhDre Wrote:  ^ I respectfully disagree.
I see only two reasons why a man would be less attractive at 30yo than at 20yo old:
1) He got fat
2) He was a fraternity or sports star in university

Nearly all 20 yo hotties would rather get fucked by a 30yo attractive guy than by a 20yo attractive guy.
And nearly all marriage or mother worhty girls would rather marry a successful 30yo guy than a 20yo guy.

The men who are left at 30 with the divorcees and fat and ugly women:
1) Do not approach young girls
2) Are unattractive (poor physique, poor dress and grooming, no social skills, no understanding of what wets the pussy)
3) Are unemployed or work a minimum wage job because they pissed away their twenties "partying".

But you're not considering context. Men in their 30s often don't approach 20-year-olds because they simply don't have very good access to them. Moreover, more and more AWs are trained to want a man within +/-4 years of their age, high school mentality well into their early 30s. Not to mention, many men do indeed get fat, get bald, or see a drop in their T levels by the early 30s. I realize some of us on this board are notable exceptions, but we're a minority. Most men I meet that are 30something actually don't look very good, and they certainly don't have VIP access to an unlimited supply of college age pussy. Even a successful, good-looking 30yo man has to rely more heavily on approach game, online game, or other less organic methods to get himself in front of hotter, younger women.

Never in your life is there an easier time with ample access to 18-23yos than when you are also 18-23 and without the conflicting interests that come with age (career, savings, family life, etc). OP should take advantage of the easy, organic access to young, naïve, attractive girls that someone his age will have for the next few years.

Post: #17

(12-21-2015 03:37 PM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:  Not to mention, many men do indeed get fat, get bald, or see a drop in their T levels by the early 30s. I realize some of us on this board are notable exceptions, but we're a minority. Most men I meet that are 30something actually don't look very good

Their mistake, All the resources on bodybuilding, diet, healthy lifestyle, TRT are to be found for free. They cannot expect access to top shelf young pussy if they don't want to put in any effort.

(12-21-2015 03:37 PM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:  Moreover, more and more AWs are trained to want a man within +/-4 years of their age, high school mentality well into their early 30s.

They are also trained to want effeminate sjw's. Do you see a lot of these guys with hot girls? Training cannot override instinct. Don't listen to what they say, look at what they do.

(12-21-2015 03:37 PM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:  But you're not considering context. Men in their 30s often don't approach 20-year-olds because they simply don't have very good access to them. Most men I meet that are 30something ..., and they certainly don't have VIP access to an unlimited supply of college age pussy. Even a successful, good-looking 30yo man has to rely more heavily on approach game, online game, or other less organic methods to get himself in front of hotter, younger women.

Never in your life is there an easier time with ample access to 18-23yos than when you are also 18-23 and without the conflicting interests that come with age (career, savings, family life, etc). OP should take advantage of the easy, organic access to young, naïve, attractive girls that someone his age will have for the next few years.

Young girls can be met on tinder, in bars and in shopping streets. It is easier to make a "fuck material" impression on a girl you meet one night in a bar than on a girl you are sharing all your classes with.

I agree with you that you will never have better access to young girls then during your college years and that you should take advantage of it, but that doesn't mean that OP should go into "yolo mode" and screw the rest of his life. He can perfectly take advantage of the buffet of university girls while obtaining a medicine, law, engineering, computer science or accounting degree from a top school.

Post: #18

(12-21-2015 04:21 PM)PhDre Wrote:  I agree with you that you will never have better access to young girls then during your college years and that you should take advantage of it, but that doesn't mean that OP should go into "yolo mode" and screw the rest of his life. He can perfectly take advantage of the buffet of university girls while obtaining a medicine, law, engineering, computer science or accounting degree from a top school.

I'm not advocating him to go into yolo mode, I'm advocating him to take advantage of the privilege of youth while he builds for the future. It's not smart to piss away you're 20s with a yolo mentality, it's also not smart to spend those years geeking out and then wake up a gameless 30yo and think young chicks are gonna be lining up to bang you because of your PhD.

Post: #19

(12-21-2015 04:30 PM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:  I'm not advocating him to go into yolo mode, I'm advocating him to take advantage of the privilege of youth while he builds for the future. It's not smart to piss away you're 20s with a yolo mentality, it's also not smart to spend those years geeking out and then wake up a gameless 30yo and think young chicks are gonna be lining up to bang you because of your PhD.

I completely agree with you on the fact that he should profit from his natural exposure to young girls.
However, I still do not understand how this excludes getting a PhD or a hard degree from a top school.

The reason guys these days do not manage to simultaneously
1) obtain a high calibre degree
2) get in shape
3) build social skills, party and game girls
is not because it is impossible, but because they piss away 5+ hours a day on the internet, on video games and on being plain lazy.

Let's do the math:
week: 7x24h = 168h
sleep: 9h/night -> 63 h/week
classes: 40h/week (only happens in a hard engineering or medicine degree, most degrees will be 20-30h)
eating and food preparation: 2h/day -> 14h/week
showering and relaxation before bed time: 1h/day -> 7h/week
gym: 5h/week
groceries: 1h/week
cleaning your room: 1h/week
laundry: 2h/week
If I'm not mistaken, this leaves a full 35h/week to be divided amongst school work and social activities/partying. And let's not forget that you alse have social interaction in class, when going to the gym, ...

The guy who follows this example is going to graduate:
- with a high score in a valuable degree
- in perfect health and with a great physique
- with a network to enhance his further career opportunities
- with ample social skills and experience with girls
- with discipline and time management skills
No, he won't know the latest movies, tv series or memes. But that doesn't matter. Your twenties are for:
1) building a career
2) building your body
3) building your game and social skills
They are not for watching movies, reading books, browsing the internet, playing candy crush...

I fell into this trap as well. I managed to obtain the high calibre degree with good career prospects and I stayed lean.
However, I failed to put on any muscle and I didn't build my social circle and game to a point where I am completely satisfied with it.
And I deeply regret this, that's why I want to get this advice to the younger guys on this forum.

Post: #20

Thanks a lot for the suggestions and advice guys!I still have some months time to decide so I'm not in a hurry but this thread will definitely help me to decide which path to take.

Post: #21

(12-13-2015 03:59 PM)PhDre Wrote:  I advise against the gap year for two reasons:

1) Every person I know who did it, came back as a lazy fuck and did not accomplish anything for the rest of his life.
They lived a one year holiday, spending all their savings or their parent's money. Once they returned, they were too lazy to study or work hard. These are the kind of people who are still working a minimum wage job in a bar, restaurant or call center at age 30.

I think that gap years may tend to attract a certain type of person, but they are no grand predictor of future success.

I took a gap year off after high school, went to Japan for three months and then spent nine months working a job that paid slightly better than minimum wage to save for university.

The year was so beneficial that I ended up pausing my university education three times to take another year off. While some folks even here on the forum have derided my decision to drag out my university education over 8 years, what they don't realize is that none of that time was wasted.

Any time I took off was used either to earn money for school or towards my goal of becoming fluent in an East Asian language.

When I finally graduated, I had a toolbox of the skills I needed to succeed. I'm just coming up to the two year anniversary of my university education. I speak fluent Chinese, I run my own company. I just hired my first employee a week ago and will be hiring two more in March. I'm succeeding in a niche business that no one else is targeting because there is virtually no one out their with my combination with skills.

I think that the question of whether to take a gap year depends on how well you can use that time towards something beneficial.

Lazy people are still going to be failures even if they don't take a gap year.

Quote:2) You've got no years to lose if you want to build a big career.
I lost three years, two through a bad study choice and one through a combination of laziness and health issues. This means that now I am competing against people who are just as smart as I am, have the same amount of relevant experience, but are three years younger. If a recruiter is searching for a candidate for a high profile job, who will he prefer? Right now I sacrifice all my weekends to study and code to compensate for the lost years.

I think it's a bigger mistake to use the word "career," at least in the context of working for other people.

If you want to be truly successful, you shouldn't be working for other people, you should be working for yourself.

If your goal is true success, you should have two metrics.

(1) Do I have the skills, experience and resume necessary to get jobs that will allow me to stack cash quickly so that I can fund launching my own company?

(2) Do I have the skills and knowledge necessary to run my own business once I've stacked the correct amount of cash?

Post: #22

^^Suits, first of all congratulations on the business success.

However, your gap years were not the typical gap years. You state it yourself:

(12-23-2015 08:41 PM)Suits Wrote:  I took a gap year off after high school, went to Japan for three months and then spent nine months working a job that paid slightly better than minimum wage to save for university.

The year was so beneficial that I ended up pausing my university education three times to take another year off. While some folks even here on the forum have derided my decision to drag out my university education over 8 years, what they don't realize is that none of that time was wasted.

Any time I took off was used either to earn money for school or towards my goal of becoming fluent in an East Asian language.

You had a clear goal and you wasted no time in achieving it. This is completely different from OP's situation who asks if he should take time off to travel.

As for the word career, I meant it in the broadest sense possible.

Even if you want your own business (I think this can indeed be the most rewarding career choice - both financially and emotionally), you have no years to waste. You stated it yourself; you spent every year saving money for uni (and maybe already for your business?) and building your skill set.

Every year where you aren't doing these things, you are wasting precious time of your life, you are wasting time you could have spent on your own company and you are spending money without increasing your future earning potential (or earning any money at all).

One more question: did you already anticipate this business opportunity (or similar opportunities) many years ago and is that the reason you chose to pursue your degree and mastery of Chinese? If that is the case, then you are truly far ahead of most people.

Post: #23

(12-23-2015 11:13 PM)PhDre Wrote:  ^^Suits, first of all congratulations on the business success.

However, your gap years were not the typical gap years. You state it yourself:

(12-23-2015 08:41 PM)Suits Wrote:  I took a gap year off after high school, went to Japan for three months and then spent nine months working a job that paid slightly better than minimum wage to save for university.

The year was so beneficial that I ended up pausing my university education three times to take another year off. While some folks even here on the forum have derided my decision to drag out my university education over 8 years, what they don't realize is that none of that time was wasted.

Any time I took off was used either to earn money for school or towards my goal of becoming fluent in an East Asian language.

You had a clear goal and you wasted no time in achieving it. This is completely different from OP's situation who asks if he should take time off to travel.

As for the word career, I meant it in the broadest sense possible.

Even if you want your own business (I think this can indeed be the most rewarding career choice - both financially and emotionally), you have no years to waste. You stated it yourself; you spent every year saving money for uni (and maybe already for your business?) and building your skill set.

Every year where you aren't doing these things, you are wasting precious time of your life, you are wasting time you could have spent on your own company and you are spending money without increasing your future earning potential (or earning any money at all).

Agreed. But I don't think people are failing because they take a gap year. I think that the type of people who end up taking a gap year are those who lack direction -- now and in the future.

In my case, since I ended up focusing on Chinese and abandoning Japanese, you could say that I wasted my time, but I benefitted from a lot of personal development. I also learned things about language skills development that provide inspiration to this day as I develop my own business (language education products industry).

My point is that we shouldn't knock gap years outright. We should rather be encouraging young men not to waste their time.

A gap year can be valuable if you aren't doing to because you simply lack direction and purpose.

I have a simple maxim for life: always be learning.

That's a good basis to live life by whether you are taking time off from school or going to university. Don't study something that doesn't teach you anything.

I think I wasted far more time studying things in university that had no career utility than I did taking four gap years.

In fact, three of those four years were dedicated to learning Chinese. If I'd take four gap years and gone to learn four different languages in four different places, it would have been a waste of time.

But since I kept returning to China, a was able to develop a specific skill until it became useful. Right now, my ability to speak Chinese at a conversationally fluent level is opening an unbelievable number of doors.

Quote:One more question: did you already anticipate this business opportunity (or similar opportunities) many years ago and is that the reason you chose to pursue your degree and mastery of Chinese? If that is the case, then you are truly far ahead of most people.

I never anticipated that I'd be doing what I'm doing now. What I've done is taken a very simple thing and learned to do it very well. As such, I'm probably the only guy in the world doing what I'm doing. I say this because I'm made a genuine effort to seek out others doing work in the same niche to avoid wasting time forging a complete new trail and have had no success in finding any evidence that there are others out there.

I won't post precisely what I do for reasons of anonymity, but it's nothing more that specializing in a extremely effective system of language education that I developed based on several years of teaching experience as I observed what helped students learn and what didn't.

For me, teaching English was just an easy way to make money to support myself while I exposed myself to the Chinese language by living in mainland China. It paid the bills and kept my schedule open to putting myself in situations that forced me to improve my Chinese language skills.

I never thought that I would build a business in this field.

However, I did predict that speaking Chinese would come in handy. I knew this before 2004 when I was still in high school. I went to an international school where about 100 kids from Hong Kong, Korea and Mexico were benefitting from learning English in Canada. I figured that they would have the leg up on me, so once I graduated high school, I immediately set to work trying to replicate their experience overseas.

Eventually, I started to realize that simply language skills on their own were pretty useless and needed to be combined with another skillset to be valuable. For me, that was ESL teaching.

Being able to speak Chinese has been very valuable, because it allows me to speak directly with parents of students and this impresses them greatly. It also makes them feel comfortable and more willing to spend money on their children's education, because they can speak directly to an actual teacher about the strategy being used to help their child learn English.

This self-marketing ability is proving to be an asset and I help schools that want to use my products and teaching system to promote their new English classes. There are virtually no language schools in existence in China that let foreign teachers anywhere near the marketing process, outside of teaching demonstration classes.

It's a breath of fresh air for parents to get the questions answered directly by a genuine foreign teacher, as opposed to being told sweet lies by a sales person. Being to speak Chinese makes that possible to me. Without that skill, I'd be unable to go in the business direction that I'm currently going in.