9 Pros and Cons About Moving Abroad
And How It Changed Me
Hey friends, 👋👋
I moved to Denmark in 2020 to study my master’s at DTU (Technical University of Denmark) and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made! 👍👍
But moving to a country where you don’t know the language and culture comes also with big day-to-day challenges.
So in this post, I am going to talk about my personal pros and cons about moving abroad. Most of these points also apply to my international friends here.
#Pro 1 - Daily discomfort makes you grow
As an expat, you’re out of your comfort zone every day. Whether it’s communicating with locals, going to the doctor, trying to figure out the tax system, booking a squash court. Most of the things don’t work the same way as in your home country. But this means also, that you are expending your horizon and learn something new daily.
Overcoming these challenges makes you a lot more resistant and problems that you saw as problems in the past, are no longer problems but small checklists that are easy to do.
#Pro 2 - Learn skills you would not learn in your home country
Professionally, I learned many things here in Denmark I wouldn’t have learned in Germany. This mostly relates to digital tools and workflows. Everything in Denmark is documented digitally.
I learned how to do hand calculations digitally in Mathcad, instead of using pen and paper. All of my exams that involved calculations had to be done at my laptop and the results had to be submitted in a PDF.
I learned how to write well-structured reports explaining structural designs and concepts.
I learned how to work and communicate in teams.
3D Modelling: This doesn’t apply to me, because I knew Revit pretty well when I moved, but most of the students are excellent in Revit.
#Pro 3 - Learning a new language
The process of learning a new language is very interesting. At first, you think you will never learn that language. But if you keep going and keep learning, at some point you will start to pick up things. From there, the improvement is exponential. 🚀🚀
Speaking the language of the country you live in also lets you experience and understand it better. And I personally also think that it makes you more creative, because if you don’t know a certain word or phrase, you find a different word.
I am curious to know if you live abroad or have experience with learning another language? Let us know in the comments. 📝📝
#Pro 4 - International network
I love having friends from different countries and cultures. Meeting people from different places made me more tolerant and appreciative of my background. At the same time, it’s inspiring to hear the stories of why people moved abroad. It’s mostly to grow personally and professionally.
#Pro 5 - Being open-minded
People who move abroad are in general open-minded because they need to make new friends, navigate through a new culture, adapt to a new work environment, learn a new language, and much more. All of this is hard work, but it makes one even more open-minded. And I personally think that being open-minded helps with problem-solving and understanding people.
#Con 1 - Distance to home
Living abroad means that in challenging times, you can’t easily meet up with your family and friends from home.
Whenever you move, your dad and mum can’t come with his trailer and help you.
You can’t go to your grandma’s place for lunch every Sunday 😋😋
You might be losing contact to some friends at home because keeping contact over a big distance is difficult
#Con 2 - Making friends with locals is hard
I have been living in Denmark now for over 2.5 years and learned the language, but I haven’t made a Danish friend yet. Don’t get me wrong, Danes are one of the nicest and friendliest people, but the language barrier makes it hard to get into a Danish friend group. Also, all locals already have an established friend group. So they are not on the hunt for friends as you are as an international.
#Con 3 - Language problems
As many advantages, learning a new language has, there are also some problems:
It’s very time-consuming. I had Danish language class 4.5 hours a week for 2 years. At that point, I was able to have conversations in Danish. Not very deep conversations, but good enough for daily life. However, almost 5 hours a week for 2 years is a lot of time. And most internationals I know here, either give up, never start or take long breaks between the different modules.
It takes much longer than 2 years to be able to equally participate in group talks. I am still very quiet when I have lunch with my colleagues because I am either not confident enough in my pronunciation or I am missing some words to be able to say something quickly.
#Con 4 - Difficulties with finding a job
I have been lucky enough that I never had problems finding a study related job. As all communication and documentation is in the local language, many of my friends and fellow students had problems finding a student job or full-time job after uni. But here’s the pattern I found with the internationals who got a job:
You need to have something extra.
This could be
practical work experience
a skill that is in demand. In structural engineering, that could be parametric design, programming, or advanced finite element modelling
developing a network through the courses you have
learning the local language quickly
creativity and good communication. This could be that you stand out in the application because you did something different. For example, you added a portfolio of projects, or you created a video resume.
Conclusion
Are you living abroad? Share your experience. I am excited to hear other people’s journey
Are you thinking of moving abroad?
Let us know in the comments below and let’s start the conversation. ✍️✍️
Have a great day!
Laurin
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