How do you like teaching in Japan?

I've got three years of school left on my Bachelors, and then I'm considering moving to Japan to teach English.
My question is for people who have taught in Japan. Is it worth it? I like to teach, and this job look especially good to me since (depending on the company) I won't be teaching large groups, and it's also in a foreign country.
Is there a lot of cultureshock moving to Japan? I live in Western New York (NOT NYC), and I've never been to Japan.
Most importantly, is the pay decent? I'm pretty good about not running up college loans but I know I'll have some, and it would be important to have a job that provides for a decent living (and hopefully a little extra to pay off those loans!).
What are your opinions? Thanks!!

There are many threads discussing this. In my opinion its the bare minimum pay you can receive legally, but depends on how you live, but after your first year and taxes @_@.

As for culture shock, it depends on the person again, each person is different and depends on how much exposure you have had to international things and open mind.

as the above poster mentioned this has been discussed about 20,000,000 times on this forum.

one thing that is different now is that in about 1 year from now, your pay in yen is going to be worth quite a lot compared to the US dollar. this will help you pay down your debts in the US more quickly. the downside is that any money coming to you from the US is going to be worth a lot less than it used to be.

i expect the dollar to be down around 20% or more by this time next year against the yen.

winterwolf, do you think the Japanese government will let the yen go that low against the dollar without intervening? Even at current rates the strength of the yen is crippling Japanese exporters.

In the past the government deliberately devalued the yen when it was strong enough to seriously affect exports- they did that when I first arrived in Japan in early 1996, and I very much doubt they will let the yen continue to strengthen against the dollar for another year.

the problem this time around is the US economy is heading into a very large depression the likes of which have not been seen in decades.

the dollar is heading towards hyperinflation in the next 4 years, and if the us government does not approve the bailout of GM i would not be surprised if toyota ends up owning gm or at least some of its brands during obama's presidency.

it's going to be a crunch time for everyone but japan does not have the power to stop the dollar from falling like it's going to over the next few years, japan's economy will suffer but it's going to have to diversify to other markets to pick up the slack.

Thanks for the explanation, that scenario does seem possible. It's going to be interesting for a while anyway!

funnily enough though, the US's super weak dollar is going to be what saves north america eventually. after a few years of rebuilding profitable factories and manufacturing increasing to pre 90's levels, the rest of the world will be buying up north american goods like crazy since the price will be just as cheap as buying from china due to the exchange rate, and the quality will definitely be better than anything china will ever put out on a mass scale.

sorry for the slightly off topic stuff. check out the opinions of peter schiff on google if you're interested in more economic doom and gloom info.

to the original poster: teaching at any company besides your own or as a JET ALT is not going to be great money but it will be enough to live a decent life and send money home. Eikaiwa schools pay the worst and will just barely allow you to save / send money abroad after other expenses, and they usually don't pay for accommodation or transportation either.

One shouldn't come to Japan with the idea of making money as teaching isn't a goldmine.. living in a totally different culture(as a European living in North America I found that the cultures of Japan and Europe were much closer to one another than the cultures of Europe and the USA) will really broaden your mind. Learning Japanese should also be your goal.

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, the state of the economy is a worry I have. Who knows what'll be happening when I actually graduate?

I'm used to living frugally, and I'm planning to continue that way, so I don't need to make a lot of money. I just want to not have to live paycheck to paycheck!

I'm VERY interested in the Japanese language. I spend half an hour to an hour a day studying on top of working 6 days a week and going to school 4 days a week. Even if I never end up going to Japan, I want to learn Japanese.