Physics-related jobs in Bariloche, Argentina?

July 28, 2011 9:08 AM

I'm willing to relocate to San Carlos de Bariloche, Chili. I'm a 23 years old Belgian and I'm about to finish my Master's degree this September. I'm looking for a physics-related job. Teaching is a good example. Do you know where I should begin looking for?

I hope you can help MeFi! :-) Bariloche looks like an incredible place, but it's not easy to find reliable job ads online.

I've noticed that there is a well-know physics institute in Bariloche: el Instituto Balseiro. If you have any information regarding the position of teacher's assistant in this institute, that would help a lot.

I believe the best I can do is to try to find a job in a high-school. However, my mother tongue is French and my Spanish is only lower-intermediate (although I'm making good progress). What do you think? Are there schools in this region where I could teach in English?

I guess I could improve my understanding of Spanish by staying a few weeks there, but I will be on a budget and I don't know if I'd be able to find a teaching position after the beginning of the academic year.

Any tips are welcome...

Thanks a lot! :-)

posted by Fillus to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Not particularly useful, but it is important to note that Bariloche is in Argentina.

I'm vacationing there next month for a few days, I can report back then :)
posted by larthegreat at 10:11 AM on July 28, 2011

and your title states argentina, but not your question. preview fail. I can still report back about general stuff via MeMail.
posted by larthegreat at 10:12 AM on July 28, 2011

Best answer: Yeah, Bariloche is in Argentina, not Chile, although it's close to the border. Its main income is tourism, being one of the major ski resorts in South America, however it is suffering heavily at the moment due to the ash from the Cordon Caulle volcano which has carpeted the town and ski slopes. Hotel occupancy at the moment is around 20% - we're slap bang in the middle of the season now, so that is pretty disastrous. I was reading only yesterday that for this reason people are moving away as tourism-related work is drying up. I only mention this as it may not be the best time to consider living there, or it may be the best time.

I don't know much about getting a teaching job in Argentina, beyond conversational English classes in Buenos Aires, but I'm guessing you will need some sort of teaching qualification from your home country which will then need to be converted into a suitable qualification here. Knowing Argentinian bureaucracy as I do, I think it incredibly unlikely that you'll just be able to roll up and start teaching, even for a assistant job.

You may want to start contacting the Instituto Balseiro you mentioned, details here. Also, your lack of advanced Spanish is likely to be less of an issue at a Graduate level than in a high school.
posted by jontyjago at 12:17 PM on July 28, 2011

I'm Argentine and love Bariloche, and I can see why you would want to live there.

However, well, imagine an Argentine who wants to get a job teaching in, say, Liège, but doesn't speak much French (or Flemish) and is maybe sometimes a little unclear about what country Liège is in or how to spell the name of a neighboring country. They want a job teaching physics in Spanish. What would you say to this person? Would it seem realistic to you?

Sorry if that sounds discouraging, but you should be aware that Argentine is full of highly educated teachers who can barely find work ... it's not uncommon to get into a conversation with a taxi driver and learn that he has an advanced degree in the sciences or humanities.
posted by dacoit at 12:20 PM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

I hold a M. Sc. in physics. I quit one year into my PhD because I didn't believe there was a job market in physics outside of postdocs. I retrained. I was getting interviews after I retrained. One friend thought I was bullshitting when I was criticizing the employment opportunities. He ended up believing me a year later when he quit and couldn't find a job.
posted by DetriusXii at 3:13 PM on July 28, 2011

Response by poster: I believe that I didn't sell myself right in my first post.

@dacoit: my Spanish is at level B2. By this standard this is an advanced level, however I consider that I should improve. This is the reason why I've advertised it as I did. Concerning geography, I know it fairly well. I made a mistake when I sent this post because I was making another Google search on Chile, which translates into 'Chili' in French, and then I mixed two different tabs. I'm sorry if I sounded like an incult. ;-)

There are, actually, French Colleges in Buenos Aires which need science and math teachers, as I've discovered later. It doesn't seem unrealistic to me, as long as I start with Buenos Aires.

There's also INVAP in Bariloche, which hire young graduates from time to time, including physicists.
posted by Fillus at 1:39 PM on August 27, 2011