From Tokyo to Bulgaria: How I Actually Got Here

Note for Japanese readers / 日本語話者の方へ: This article is written in English. If you'd like to read it in Japanese, most browsers have a built-in translation feature — just right-click the page and select "Translate to Japanese" (Chrome), or look for the translate icon in your address bar. Give it a try!

この記事は英語で書かれています。日本語で読みたい方は、ブラウザの翻訳機能をご利用ください。ページを右クリック →「日本語に翻訳」（Chrome の場合）で簡単に翻訳できます。

In my previous post, I talked about why I decided to become a doctor — the loss of my mother, the disillusionment with my IT career, and the dream of merging technology with medicine.

But I left out the how. How does a 33-year-old IT engineer from Tokyo actually end up sitting in a medical school classroom in Bulgaria?

This is that story.

A Brutal Start: 5+ Hours of Homework Every Single Day

"If you're serious about studying abroad, half-hearted effort won't cut it."

I learned that on day one at the language school in Japan.

My weekday routine was relentless: classes from 8:30 AM to past 1:00 PM — all in English, all with native-speaking instructors. Then a one-hour train ride home, a 30-minute lunch inhaled at the table, and straight into homework for the next day's classes. Just keeping up with the daily assignments took a minimum of five hours every single day.

But the daily homework was only the beginning. On top of that, weekly assignments piled on mercilessly:

Read an English novel, create a presentation — map out character relationships and explain them logically to classmates
Read three online novels and pass a quiz — score too low, and you redo it, no exceptions
English typing drills
Research the economy, politics, and culture of your target country, then create a PowerPoint presentation

For someone like me — a former IT engineer used to reading specifications and technical manuals, not dissecting English literature and drawing character relationship maps — this was mentally the most punishing trial of all. Weekdays, weekends, it didn't matter. Every ounce of energy went into homework. Starting from a place where my English fundamentals were shaky at best, the graduation requirement of IELTS 6.0 (or equivalent TOEFL score) loomed like an impossibly high wall.

The IELTS 6.0 Wall, and a Strategic Pivot to "Bulgaria"

Should I really keep smashing headfirst into this wall, burning through precious time?

The troubleshooting mindset I'd developed as an IT engineer kicked in: "If the specs are too strict, can I find an alternative route?"

I researched obsessively — and finally found it: medical universities in Bulgaria.

Compared to popular destinations like the US, UK, or Australia, Bulgaria offered advantages that were a perfect match for my situation:

Dramatically lower tuition and living costs
Relatively safe environment
A pathway to enrollment that didn't require graduating from the language school

And the ultimate deciding factor for me: the entrance exam doesn't include physics or math. I've always had a complex about hard science subjects, so this was genuinely a ray of light in the darkness.

"Instead of trying to scale the IELTS 6.0 wall head-on, strategically move to a field where my strengths can actually shine."

And so, after building survival-level endurance through six grueling months at the language school, and with the support of an overseas medical university liaison office (IMU) that helped coordinate the move to Bulgaria, I set a new course: medical school in Eastern Europe.

The "Real Wall" After Enrollment — and a Childhood Memory That Came Flooding Back

The strategic pivot worked. I made it to Medical University - Pleven in Bulgaria and started my new life.

Classes are conducted entirely in English. The professors are considerate, avoiding overly complex vocabulary and explaining things carefully. But the wall waiting for me wasn't about keeping up with lectures — it was something far more fundamental: communication itself.

Medical schools in Bulgaria attract students from all over the world. Europe, the Middle East, Asia. Naturally, everyone's English comes with a strong accent from their home country. My "reading English" — honed by years of staring at IT manuals — and the "clean native English" I'd learned at the Japanese language school were completely useless when it came to jumping into a multinational debate where a dozen different accents were flying around the room.

That's when a memory resurfaced.

Between third and fifth grade, I had lived in Denmark because of my parents' work, attending an international school there. The common language was English, and kids from around the world communicated by any means necessary — gestures, broken grammar, sheer determination. Nobody cared about accents.

"This is it. What I actually need isn't polished English — it's the ability to survive in this kind of chaotic, diverse English environment."

Somewhere between Japan's test-focused education system and my years staring at spec documents in the IT industry, I had completely lost the instinct for live, messy, real-world communication that I'd once known as a child.

The One Tool That Recreated "Denmark" — From Inside Japan

To survive in Bulgaria's environment, I needed hands-on practice in a multicultural setting.

That's when I turned to EF English Live — an online English platform I started using during my preparation phase and continue to use to this day.

Most online English services offer either group lessons with fellow Japanese students or one-on-one sessions with an instructor. Neither of those simulates the real scenario: debating with classmates from around the world in a medical school setting.

EF English Live's greatest strength is its group lessons with international students. On the other side of the screen, you'll find students from Brazil, France, Saudi Arabia — truly diverse backgrounds. Watching them speak up confidently even with imperfect grammar, and being immersed in a variety of accents every session, vividly brought back my days at the international school in Denmark.

It's not just about "speaking English." It's about building the guts to communicate with people from all over the world, in English. If you're seriously considering studying abroad or working in a global environment, EF English Live — which lets you experience this multinational setting without leaving Japan — could be your most powerful survival tool.

Closing: Stay Where You Are, or Take the First Step?

Let me end with something blunt.

Drastically changing the course of your life as an adult requires — let's not sugarcoat it — money. The reason I was able to start from zero on the path to becoming a doctor in a foreign country like Bulgaria is that I had savings from my years as an IT engineer. That financial cushion gave me the option to choose. This road is brutal, but if I can push through and practice as a doctor, I'll have earned a credential and social standing that transcends borders — along with a stable income.

If you're feeling the same suffocation in your current career that I once felt — if some part of you wants to change your life — then consider this: take a small fraction of those savings and invest it in something with a relatively low barrier to entry: an English-speaking environment.

You don't need to quit your job tomorrow. You don't need to decide on studying abroad right now. A free trial of EF English Live is the lowest-risk first step to test your own resolve.

You've just spent your valuable time reading this entire article.

Do you really want to close this tab and go back to the same life you were living yesterday?

Or would you rather step into a classroom full of people from around the world — and knock on the door to a new chapter?

Try EF English Live's free trial and dive into a multinational environment → (Affiliate link placeholder — replace with your actual affiliate URL when available)