POLY (Hanam Misa)

I would like to add POLY Hanam Misa to the Greenlist. I was one of its inaugural teachers (the school opened in 2021) so I experienced all of the ups and downs of trying to figure everything out, but I all in all had a good experience there. I was honestly terrified to try out a POLY due to the horror stories I'd heard from far too many people, but this one was very good during my tenure.

I'll try to keep it brief and break it down into three distinct sections: housing, workplace, company culture.

HOUSING: I was put up in a really nice, newish officetel maybe 7 minutes walking from the campus... like, I could walk to the corner and see the building from there. It was centrally located with lots of restaurants and bars and shops nearby, with a gorgeous park that I would take walks in from time to time... the train station was less than 15 minutes away on foot and there were ample bus stops to take you where you needed to go. I could not complain at all about where I lived. I was only one of I think two or maybe three teachers who lived in that building though; the majority of the teachers (there were about 15 of us) lived in an apartment building in nearby Gangil-dong and could easily walk to work though some elected to take taxis if they were running late.

WORKPLACE: This school is on the top floor of a commercial building that is constantly developing. When I first got there, there were maybe two businesses on the bottom floor but over the year I was there, a GS25, a kids' cafe, and some kind of specialty doctor's office (just to name a few) had cropped up. The area is also constantly developing and has plenty of places to eat or run to get things on your break. There's a Daiso in the adjacent building that I would go to to get treats for my kids on holidays.

The school itself is very modern and pretty. They have a large library with huge floor-to-ceiling windows and tons of books for all age levels. The classrooms are outfitted with touchscreen monitors and have whiteboards on three of the four walls. The teacher's room is pretty nice; the desks are big but the quarters can be cramped if all of the teachers are in there at once.

COMPANY CULTURE: I don't know if it was because we were opening the school or if this is standard, but prior to the first day of classes, the teachers were taken to Songpa-gu (where POLY is headquartered) for a training session. It was paid and spanned an entire day with free lunch and snacks. I felt like it gave me some good exposure to the curriculum and the teaching style they wanted us to use in the classroom.

When I first started, management was a little shaky... things that were promised in interviews never materialized in reality and we teachers were kind of sketched out. We were pulling extra hours after classes ended to try to prep for the next day. Then management changed hands and things started to settle out. Like any hagwon, there were annoying things (like weekly meetings that could have been a message blast on Kakaotalk) but none of the horror shows I've heard from others before I went to POLY.

The curriculum is very clear but if you had any questions or concerns, management was always happy to help. There honestly wasn't a great deal of prep time unless you were lucky enough to get free periods in the afternoons, but it was manageable. The Korean staff, for the most part, was very helpful. There is CCTV in every room that isn't a bathroom but there was no camera-stalking or management bursting into your room. Compared to the hagwon I worked at prior to this one, this POLY was a breeze... I never had any work-related breakdowns or wept openly at my desk from stress here.

Compared to other POLYs, this one had pretty nice work hours... I think it was 9-6 some days and 9-6:45 other days, meaning you had a good amount of free time after work. After initially staying late at work in the beginning, I would leave on time almost every night and even hop on the bus and go into Seoul every now and then.

I was always paid on time, and the salary was quite good.

In short, my experience working at POLY was pretty positive; the only reason I left was because I was homesick. I think I would have renewed again if that wasn't the case. Don't discount POLY in your job search just because you've heard some not-so-great things about the company.

TLDR - Pros: nice accommodations, thorough paid training, nice location, good on-time pay, helpful management, manageable work hours. Cons: the usual, some bureaucratic BS from time to time.