Lincoln Peterson

The JET Program application is full of long waits and unknowns. I found that I spent over half a year thinking about what would happen next, from before I submitted my application and even after I landed in Japan.

I was also curious about what the orientation would be like, what the lessons were going to be like, and how my fellow cohorts would act… But I struggled to find much information about people’s real experiences.

I attended the 2026 orientation, and from what I understand, not much changes from year to year.

If you are an incoming JET, you are divided into group A and group B, depending on your region. Group A is very likely going to depart during the second-to-last weekend of July, while group B will depart precisely 1 week afterwards. However, you will have a pre departure orientation hosted by your consulate. Mine was from Chicago, and is now the largest cohort as of 2026!

Consulate Orientation

The Chicago consulate orientation was fun! It was just one day, I got to meet and talk to a lot of different people. I was one of the first ones there and came with a few others who I had arranged to meet up with beforehand. There was a speech from a guy who did the program a long time ago, and he talked about how much it influenced his life, and how he used the experience in his future. He ended up becoming a college professor, teaching something related to Japan.

However, most of the orientation was information about our flight, what to do with our luggage, talking about culture shock, etc. I don’t think it was especially long.

At the end they had an optional party with Japanese food (stuff you would find in bento such as karaage or tamagoyaki) and brought us a bunch of Japanese alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

Going to Japan

I departed on Sunday 26, my hotel (the hotel inside the airport) was paid for by my consulate, but I had a roommate, and then our flight left at noon the following day. There is no dress code for the flight, so dress comfortably, but I wouldn’t wear pajamas.

When we got to Haneda airport, it seemed like the staff were aware that we were all coming in a big group. However, our intake (Chicago) ended up having a huge disaster at immigration.

If you’ve come to Japan on a visa before, you probably remember how you just enter the immigration, they might ask some questions, they scan your visa in your passport, and print your residence card right then and there based on a photo pre-submitted.

The staff were getting flustered after ALL of our visas were failing the check at the border. When I asked one of the agents there, he told me 「ビザの審査ができなくてで在留カードは発行できないようです・・・」so we were all escorted to a separate area and were stuck in a room in immigration for THREE HOURS as the staff rushed to reissue a new card.

As in, manually reentering all of our information one by one, and taking new pictures of all of us.

Finally we were able to get through immigration and escorted to the buses which took us to our hotel. I was exhausted and didn’t get back until about 8 pm. So, don’t expect to be able to do anything fun in the first day. There was a very long and frustrating line at the convenience store as everyone was trying to buy dinner for the night but most people didn’t know how to navigate the Japanese menus at check out.

Keio Plaza Orientation: Day One

We stayed at Shinjuku Keio Plaza Hotel. It’s a nice hotel, but you will have 2 roommates which makes it feel a little bit like a college orientation.

So more importantly, what does the orientation schedule look like? For my year, and I imagine yours will be similar, this was the schedule. Note that while the time slots are the same for CIR, the content is different.

The breakfast was awesome. It seemed to be hosted by the hotel itself, so it was a fancy, all you can eat buffet breakfast. There isn’t a dress code for the breakfast, but I would recommend you dress formally. Most people were already dressed up, and the few people who decided to come down in their pajamas kind of stuck out.

After breakfast, you will go with the entire cohort to the opening ceremony. You need to dress formally or you cannot enter the venue. This means a suit and tie!

There are some pretty important people that are there within the country’s board of education, so I would advise against wearing anything weird or flashy. A quick note that a black tie in Japan is a faux pas, so you should go with something else.

Next was the Keynote Speech, with speeches from someone important within their National Education board, I can’t remember who. It was quite predictable, and all you have to do is sit and listen.

In the Essential Information and Resources module, we were given information about the relationship between the different departments in the government related to our job and our school, and emergency information about natural disasters.

Japanese Law was probably the most interesting out of all of the modules thus far, the speaker was just telling us stuff about the age of consent and how we should not have sexual relationships with students, or drink and drive. Apparently there is no legal BAC limit for Japan, meaning you can not even drink a little bit and drive. I sometimes wonder if people take that seriously.

After lunch, we are split up into smaller groups depending on your group letter to take more practical classes about lesson planning and teaching, hosted by MEXT. I found them to be pretty informative and useful, actually, but your mileage may vary. It was a lot of collaborative work and coming up with activities to fit different curriculums and age groups.

After that, you are combined with the rest of the cohort again into the larger venue. They had a psychologist come and speak about ways to maintain your mental health on JET and deal with culture shock and the stages of it. During the presentation, someone burst into tears and left the venue. Unfortunately, I don’t think people with extreme stress responses are really cut out for the program.

I was curious what the “Japanese Study” would be like, and it seemed like the presenters knew that people had a wide range of abilities and went over methods over teaching any actual Japanese. This is probably the right choice, because even geared towards a beginner, you aren’t going to learn anything in a single 1 hour class alone.

Finally, we had the Welcome Reception. This was optional, we were split up based on our placement region. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better with making conversation with random people. But, for what it’s worth, I’m not in contact with anyone at all from this welcome reception anyways.

Keio Plaza Orientation: Day Two

7:00-8:30	Breakfast
9:00-10:00	MEXT Workshop 1
10:10-11:10	MEXT Workshop 2
11:20-12:20	MEXT Workshop 3
12:20-13:30	Lunch
13:30-14:30	Useful Information for ALTs
14:45-15:55	Panel Discussion
16:25-17:00	Host Prefecture/Designated City Meetings

The second day is a little shorter, and is made up of 3 workshops. I was kind of losing it over an issue with not being able to pay a measly 2,500 yen to my real estate company due to some fee that was taken out on their end when doing an international wire. I should have used Wise.

The workshops were pretty useful, a good review if you have a lot of teaching experience, and useful for people who have never made lesson plans before. They involve a lot of group work, and you need a pen!

After lunch, we were given a presentation that sounds exactly like what it is, Useful Information for ALTs. It was mostly related to how to fit in a work environment that’s so culturally different from the USA.

The panel discussion was made of 3 current JETs in very different situations who are given questions to answer in front of everyone.

Finally, you meet with your representatives of your prefecture! The Tokyo jets were over in about 10 minutes, we were just given info about our next hotel room, dress code, etc. I had to run off to go talk to my real estate agent.

Well this was a lot of text and not a lot of pictures. To be honest, I feel kind of embarassed to take a lot of pictures of daily life. Anyways, I hope this was useful if you are an incoming JET wondering what the orientation has in store for you!