Updated Review Dec. 2012

Unfortunately, Gepik is hanging on by a thread. Following Seoul's SMOE lead, Gepik has removed teachers from high school and middle schools. If you are interested in this program then you will be working at an elementary school. My personality and patience does not match this work environment but if you see yourself teaching little (cute) kiddies, then Gepik will pay for your services. Expect fierce competition as many teachers in Korea are trying to stay here. Which leads me to the positives, Korea is an fantastic place to work and live. The people, food, culture, cities, the expat community, entertainment, and prime location to travel abroad to other countries, etc. all come together to give you a true adventure and life long memories and friendships. It is a really safe place too. Gepik doesn't really do much in the day to day aspects of teaching in Korea. You are pretty much on your own and find answers through other expats or online resources. You report to your school and rarely interact with Gepik officials/coordinators. What Gepik does do is pay your salary, they take care of the politics of foreigners teaching in Korea, find funding, etc. They also provide an annual 3 day training trip which is great to meet other teachers in your area. Right now I would not recommend working with a Gepik school as every year they have been downsizing due to budget cuts. Most teachers come for a year but stay longer because the life here is amazing, so I recommend looking else where because moving across the world is difficult and settling in with a stable organization is one aspect you can correctly make in the beginning. Currently as of Dec. 2012 Gepik isn't acting like a stable organization, more like one that is about to fold up shop. Lots of teachers here with Gepik are scrambling to find new schools as next year's budget cut hundreds of jobs. The public sentiment over here is changing as well... Koreans have a lessened a bit the need to import English speakers, the craze is dying down as the world's financial gloom has Koreans cutting costs across the board. Learning Chinese is increasing in popularity as well, taking away from the English dominated ESL business. Well that's enough on that... Overall, I enjoyed my time with Gepik; always felt respected, taken care of, and appreciated, for this I am grateful for all the people of Gepik.