Anyone looking at going to work in Saudi Arabia, I feel compelled to advise you to think about this very very carefully and thoroughly research the company and the educational institute.

I was offered a job as an ESL instructor at King Saud University in Riyadh, through ICEAT.

It was a miserable experience. On the plus side I met some great people (colleagues), but the job was an absolute joke and the company has no morals whatsoever.

Unlike other companies, those in Saudi Arabia have tough penalties if you break your contract. What you would be forced to pay surpasses a month and half's salary. If you think you can just leave without telling them, think again, as in Saudi Arabia you need an exit visa from your company in order to leave the country. Basically you are giving up your freedom when you go there.

I cannot comment on other companies, only what I heard of them. ICEAT in some ways seems better than what I have heard of some others. But they are greedy and they are dishonest.

In terms of King Saud University - run! It was like working in a prison and we were the inmates. Actually a more accurate description would be a boarding school for naughty children. Teachers are not treated with any respect whatsoever, and when they say you only get 30 days leave they mean it. When the university closes to the students, it does not close to the English teachers. Only the English teachers, by the way. Teachers from other departments can stay home, but English teachers are expected to be there, come rain or shine, whether students are or not. The administration either leaves you to waste 8 hours sitting at your desk watching films, or they organize pointless things like jewelry making workshops and art competitions. So this means when the university closes for a week, instead of going away to visit your family, or visit some interesting neighboring region or country, you just waste time doing nothing, just so they can say you are there.

If you are late you get money docked. If you are sick, you have to provide a sick note, even if you have projectile vomiting or uncontrollable diarrhea, you are still expected to go and get a doctors note. A colleague of mine even said that a doctor at a hospital told her they had been told not to give doctor's notes, and colleagues I knew were refused doctors' notes at hospitals even when they were legitimately ill.

Once you walk through those campus doors, you have entered prison. You cannot leave then until 3pm (or 3.30pm - the end of your shift), where you touch your thumb onto the fingerprint machine to touch out. You have to touch in every morning, and if you don't then you get docked money. If you do need to leave campus for any reason, then you need to get permission, and can only do so 3 times a semester. If you are unlucky enough to be assigned 3 classes a day, then you will never be able to avail this option. The process for getting permission is ridiculous as well. You have to fill out a slip (all in Arabic), and get it signed by 3 different people after justifying your need to leave, and then make a copy for one of the administrators.

Regardless of how qualified you are, you are still subjected to multiple observations. An absurd kind they call 'buzz' observations where they basically check you are following the dress code, seating arrangement, have filled out the register properly, have a silly lesson plan template that no-one uses as their actual lesson plan, and are using the technology supplied (which invariably does not work). Then they have one scheduled observation a semester which is allegedly to make sure 'learning is taking place'.

This is without a doubt, the worst place I have every worked in my life, and would highly advise against it to anyone. To each their own. There are people who make it through and some who even re-sign.

Best of luck.