I quit my job to study

I've recently quit the job I held for 3 and a half years.

When I arrived in Argentina, I was on my gap year, with a return ticket home. I spent most of my time Couch Surfing, wwoofing, brushing up on my Spanish, and basically spending my days holidaying away from the city. I was a maths teacher before taking a year off, so eventually settling down in a foreign country to teach maths has always been at the back of my head.

While I was having the time of my life in Mendoza, I got to know the director of a private language school, who offered me a job as a language teacher, and with that, my residence visa. While working, I got introduced to the world of education in Argentina, to which I've only had slight glimpses while volunteering with farms and families.

Two years into the process of obtaining a work-residence visa, with the confirmation still far over the horizon out of sight, I toyed with the idea of changing it into a student-residence visa. And what better to study than to finally get a degree in mathematics? Never mind that it will be taught entirely in Spanish. And where better to study than the most prestigious public university in Mendoza?

To study in a university in Argentina, you have to prove that you've completed your secondary education. If you've completed it abroad, that country needs to be on a list of accepted countries with which Argentina has conventions with. Otherwise, you need to study certain social sciences subjects (history, geography, argentine language and literature, civics education) at secondary level to have your foreign certificate verified. I spent half a year figuring out how to go about studying for these subjects and sitting for the relevant exams, then spent another year actually picking up some knowledge.

By the beginning of 2018, it has become crystal clear that the private school has no intention at all to renew my work contract, and with that, my work-residence visa application has fallen into a limbo all over again. I'm not going to let them walk all over me with outrageous requirements and restrictions like I've allowed them to the last 3.5 years. Enough is enough. They no longer hold the only key to my stay in the country. They no longer control my comings and goings within Argentine territory. Without their official work contract, I would've either became an illegal overstayer, or would've had to leave the country. Not anymore.

In February 2018, with all the preparatory subjects passed and with my foreign secondary school certificate verified, the university officially got me registered as a formal student with the immigrations database.

With the alternative key in hand, I dropped the original one.

I quit my job.