The Reasons Why I Changed My Career from Teaching English in the School to Working as a Graphic Designer

 Hello everyone. I would like to tell you about the reasons why I have changed my career from teaching English language in the school to working as a graphic designer. After feeling demotivated at my school, eventually, my leader reassigned me from being an English teacher to being a graphic designer in my school starting in January. 

Handling the Teachers' Administrations are More Difficult and Challenging than Designing the Pictures

During my first period of teaching at the school, I managed to complete my teaching administration tasks well. Then, I managed to create English exam questions well and successfully in 2023. In fact, I could complete my tasks as a teacher without any assistance from my leader at that time. At that time, I attended school twice a week and completed my duties as a teacher while discussing with my students in 2023. Unfortunately, during my second period of teaching at the school, my leader required me to come to school once a week, and my mood began to fluctuate at that time. In fact, I was forced to look for a job besides teaching. I completed my duties as a teacher well, but I also recapped the students' grades after every midterm and final exam. Fortunately, my leader at the time checked the results of the students' grade recaps and my leader helped me to recap the students' grades. But my mood continued to fluctuate and I had to apply for jobs at several companies at that time. During my third term teaching at the school, the head of the foundation gave my leader the additional task to help me teach English and computer skills, so I had to teach with my leader's assistance. From that moment on, my mood fluctuated and I became sensitive and easily offended when teaching my students. In fact, my administration had already been completed in November 2025. In the last week of 2025, my leader took over the task of recording my students' grades, and I was increasingly offended by his attitude at that time. I became demotivated when teaching and educating all my students, so I gave up and decided that I had no intention of continuing to be a teacher in the future. I realized that managing teacher administration is more difficult and challenging than designing images because designing images is easier and faster than managing teacher administration at school, which made me procrastinate on completing the task. 

My mood as a teacher was under a lot of pressure and my mental condition was unstable during my two teaching periods at the school. 

Because I only went to school to teach students once a week, my mood dropped when teaching students at that time. In fact, I was easily overwhelmed when some of my students struggled to understand my teaching methods. Then my leader took over almost all of the classes to teach the students until I sat down, and my mood was rather offended by my leader. Teaching students was challenging for me, and I struggled to manage the classroom and develop the students' character while they were learning in class. Moreover, during the three periods I taught at the school, there were no training programs for teachers, so I became demotivated when teaching students, and my energy to be a teacher continued to decline during those three periods. Because my mood was unstable when teaching students and my leader encouraged me to improve my teaching skills independently at home, I felt demotivated because my leader did not provide training to improve teachers' skills at that time. So, I felt stagnant as a teacher and I was more enthusiastic in designing pictures than teaching students in class at that time.

The salary of junior graphic designer is higher than the salary of English teacher 

If I work as a junior graphic designer at the office, I will receive a salary above the regional minimum wage. I will use that salary to pay for household expenses and buy some food at home. On the other hand, if I work as a teacher at the school, I will receive a salary below the regional minimum wage. That salary will not be enough to pay for household expenses, and I will have to find a side job to get additional income. If I am promoted to senior graphic designer, I will receive a high salary and I will save money for the future. Then, if I am promoted to art director, I will be able to receive tens of millions of rupiah in salary one day. So, I am more motivated to become a graphic designer because the salary for a graphic designer is higher than the salary as an English teacher at primary school. 

Enhancing the graphic design is more interesting & energizing than developing teaching skill at home

During my third period of teaching at school, my mood dropped significantly, so I thought and chose graphic design as the next skill I had to learn and master to avoid teaching in the classroom in September 2025. Because I like designing photos using Canva, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Design on my laptop, I learned and started improving my graphic design skills from September 2025 until now.  Because designing photos on a laptop is more energizing than teaching students in class, I started pursuing a career as a junior graphic designer and decided not to continue my career as an English teacher in schools or other educational institutions. Maybe my physical and mental condition is already unsuitable for teaching, and I've started to feel comfortable working from home. 

All the reasons I gave made me realize that I was not very professional when I was a teacher at school. I am more suited to working as a graphic designer in a company or at home because if I work in an office or at home, I can improve my graphic design skills while learning soft skills with my mentor and colleagues. If I work at home, I learn graphic design skills while looking for new mentors and colleagues to work from home. 

Illustration: Working from Home