[acjama]

I also wanted to add my two cents (the European ones), but then I noticed I'd be just echoing Godwine-san.

I've been in Japan for four years, just got married and since my second radioactive fallout seems to be lamer than my first (please do NOT call me lucky), extended my visa too. I got my M.Sc before coming, and I also find no rapport with people who dismiss education. I am very experienced in my relevant field, and 100% convinced that nobody would have let me accumulate that relevant experience without the M.Sc. I would not have met dozens of Japanese exchange students and gotten the idea of going to work to Japan, had I worked at McDonalds or something straight after high school instead of working hard in the university.

Education and experience are not sugar and salt, they are two separate things, except that accumulation of experience speeds up tenfold when one has a degree to open those flood gates.

Further, "education" has a specific meaning (many, in fact) with standards, but "experience" has not. "Experience of doing what, and by who's standards?" is very valid question. University students also need to pay rent, go shopping, clean house and relax, just like "experience-claiming" people do.

I didn't come to Japan to change it. I'm simply not interested in changing others to my own image. Japan have strict rules, but they can be played with, and that's often fun to everybody's advantage. I.e. my application for visa renewal was accepted in four days with no questions asked instead of the advertised 1-3 months inspection. I don't know how long it should take, but a Japanese Visa lawyer was astohinsed by this. But I have no delusions of what my M.Sc. degree (and the accompanying letter in Japanese) played in it.