FLEMING ISLAND – When Michelle Bureau first traveled to Japan in the summer of 2015, she was just a student. Through the guidance of a prestigious Japanese exchange program, this time she will return as a teacher.

Bureau boards a 14-hour flight this Saturday for Yosano, a town of about 24,000 along the Sea of Japan, to begin her yearlong residency in the Japan Exchange and Teaching program. The JET program invites participants from 65 countries to teach English in Japanese schools.

“I think everyone should have a chance to get out of their comfort zone like this, but I don’t know what it’s going to be like,” said Bureau, a Fleming Island High graduate. “It’s the same thing with teaching in general, you don’t know what it’s going to be like until you’re standing in front of a group of students and you have to teach them.”

Bureau will receive a monthly stipend comparable to a beginner teacher’s salary to pay the bills as she works as a teacher’s assistant for elementary and junior high school students. The program also pays for her round trip airfare.

Alumni have lauded JET for offering selected candidates the chance to work abroad as well as acting as a kind of grassroots diplomacy between two starkly different cultures. A bachelor’s degree in any field and proof of citizenship in their native country are the only requirements to submit an application.

JET participants do not have to have any Japanese language ability nor any experience living there, but they must have an interest in learning about Japan,” said Mellissa Takeuchi, JET program coordinator at Atlanta’s Consulate General of Japan. “They don’t have to have any teaching experience or any experience with children, but at the same thing they have to have an interest in learning, and of course they have to like children. That would be a problem.”

However, submitting an application is the easy part.

Bureau submitted her lengthy application to the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. last July. In the meantime, she also had to write an essay and do a face-to-face interview at one of the 16 United States consulates.

“It can be very difficult to get into the JET program, that’s the only downside,” Takeuchi said. “There’s no guarantee you’re going to get in, but if you do get in it’s an excellent way to get your foot in the door to Japan.”

Each year, JET plucks approximately 1,000 applicants from their homes in the 65 participating countries, a number Takeuchi said could dramatically increase following the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. There is strong support from the Japanese government to continue the federally-funded program because of a belief that it not only increases English literacy among students, but also encourages cultural diplomacy.

When she traveled to Japan the first time, Bureau found herself enamored with the architecture more than anything else. She was especially caught by the shrines and temples. In Japan, shrines appear to come from nowhere, sometimes even situated in the middle of a city.

It was incredible, she said, “being in a building that’s older than your country.”

Bureau said she had never been a foreigner – or even been in a big city – until she traveled to Tokyo for the first time during a school trip abroad while she studied for her bachelor’s degree in English.

“My favorite part of the trip – and it’s a little odd – but riding the bullet train we had a two hour ride from Kyoto to Tokyo. When you look at pics of Japan you see the cities of Japan but on the bullet train you get to see this vast amount of country side. I got to see Japan the way a lot of people don’t get to see Japan,” Bureau said.

Bureau completed her degree in December of 2015 from Augusta University in Augusta, Ga. and worked as a substitute teacher until the end of the school year.

When JET alumni come back from Japan after their residency, the hope is they will share Japan’s culture with others. The program tends to lure candidates back into participating in one way or another, Takeuchi said. The consulate selected her for participation in the JET program in 2004, now she coordinates the program for Atlanta’s consulate.

“I think personally and character-wise it made me a stronger person, more capable of dealing with different situations, better able to work in international work environments,” Takeuchi said. “It, of course, boosted my resume having international working experience right after college.”

Takeuchi stayed in Japan for five years, the max-allotted time. JET candidates are initially on a one-year contract, but they can choose to renew it once it expires. Bureau said she’s going to take it one year at a time, but she wants to stay for more than a year.

“There’s a lot to say, but also not too much to say,” Bureau said. “You’re moving to a foreign culture you don’t know what to expect. You may have preconceptions but I’ve never taught in a Japanese school, so there’s a lot to say, but there’s not a lot to say. I don’t want to come in there with too many preconceptions, because I don’t want to have an expectation for what it’s going to be. It can be anything.”