I Want to Move to Japan, but I Currently Have No Bachelor's Degree and I'm Trying to Decide If It's worth the Investment
For a while now I've considered that I'd like to move to Japan at some point in my life. I started to get to the point where I was thinking I'd like to move within a couple of years and began doing heavier research. My spirit was crushed when I realized that getting a Bachelor's Degree seems to be a baseline requirement for finding work in Japan, as I never thought I would need this. I'm currently 26, and if I enroll in a community college this year, I will be 27 by the time the semester starts. I live in The United States.
I have a fair bit of money saved up. Going to college is certainly doable for me, and moving to Japan is a very important goal for me. That said, I really don't want to invest years of my time and thousands of dollars going to college just for the chance to find a job in Japan, only for it to lead nowhere. My standard for finding a job in Japan would not be particularly high. Anything I could take that could lead to long term residency would be just fine with me. If being an English teacher is the best bet, that does sound like work I would enjoy.
Because I would be starting on this degree somewhat late, I have a lot of fear that this might look bad to a Japanese employer and make it even harder for me to find work. Heck, a lot of people I know who went to college aren't making use of their degree in any capacity, which is a large part of why I avoided college in the first place. I feel like no matter what, if I go to college, I'm going to be continually feeling an immense sense of dread that I may be wasting my time.
Essentially, I'm trying to learn this: What is my best option to study for finding a job in Japan if I'm starting from scratch? If I'm very passionate about Japan and its culture, but not too particular about what job I end up working, what path is the most likely to find success? Is getting a degree relatively late going to seriously hinder my chances of employment in Japan?
If it's helpful for me to be a tiny bit more particular about work paths, teaching in general is very appealing to me. Fields related to tourism are attractive given my interest in Japanese culture. Working as a chef is an appealing job to me as well. I've worked as a line cook, and enjoyed it, and I love to cook as a hobby. I have a lot of experience with computers, but not too much desire to work on them as a job. I keep hearing that IT is oversaturated, anyway. Just about anything aside from office work would be a preference for me, but if that's really what I need to do to find work in Japan I would still be willing to pursue that path.
I previously posted this in r/movingtojapan and got several comments, some of which were moderately helpful, before the thread was locked and I was suggested to post in a more relevant community. One suggestion was to work for a multinational company and transfer to Japan, although I don't know how difficult it is to make that happen. Another was to go to a Japanese Language School after getting my Bachelor's Degree but I'm again uncertain of the chances of this working out long term and landing me work in Japan. And of course, building a career in America before transferring, which is the option I like the sound of the least as it automatically entails several further years of development before I can have any hope of being able to move.