"The Exodus of Americans [Has] Just Started" Getting Your Degree Abroad

0:00English speakers are still a novelty here. And of course I had two cats who basically destroyed their carriers on days one and. Three, there was a lot of discussion to make sure that we were aligned and that we were doing it for for similar. Reasons. What are the visa paths? Are you running towards something or are you running away from something?

0:24And then what? I can't believe we're finally here. This is Americans Abroad. Welcome to Americans Abroad. This week we are talking about studying abroad and not just like running off for a semester in Barcelona to drink and leave boys, but getting a full on degree in another country which can save you tons and tons of money and also open the door to living your life in places like Europe. We will have Liza Jean on to talk more about that. So Jen, did you ever consider studying abroad when when you were younger?

1:02Like, did you ever think about leaving the US for your continuing education? I mean I would not have known in a trillion years like this. Pre Internet world, people cannot conceive of how low information life was, especially if you had if you didn't have parents who who done things like that. And I was the first person in my family to go to college. Well, that's not true.

1:33My mom went to Jack State for a year. But I was definitely the first person to graduate from College in my family and when we talked to Liza Jean, one of the things she talks about is these kids needing CVS which and and that they have to know before they enter college what they are going to study. I think I had no clue what the choices were before I went to college and I don't even know how I would have found out. But you, you did know what you wanted to study. This is mind blowing.

2:07Tell the story. I was a a special precocious child. So by so initially in high school I thought I wanted to go into psychology. And then junior year I heavily shifted into creative writing and English and American lit. And so by the end of my junior year, my plan was to get my bachelor's in English, get my masters, and then eventually get my PhD so I could be a doctor of literature. So that way I could do literary criticisms, which is not being a book critic.

2:44That's very people like you want to like RIP apart people's novels. No, no, no. So literary criticism is so when you would like look through Cliff notes and they would go in the symbolism is this, and this relates to this and this is an allegory for this. That's what I wanted to do. So working for university presses, working for SparkNotes or looking for Cliff notes and going, OK, let's take these works of literature and break them down into these very understandable things.

3:09I know, terribly niche. And I was like, and then, and then I'll be a professor on the side and well, that's what we'll do. But that was my plan starting junior year of high school. And everything that I did was to work closer towards that plan. Did I did I, am I doing anything with my English degree? Oh, absolutely not.

3:28Because there's. Still time. There's still time. I did start in international business, which is funny because I just thought it would be so cool. I didn't know what it meant. It was the year the Berlin Wall came down. So we ended up pivoting the whole class into talking about reuniting Germany. But but I just didn't. I didn't have a freaking clue. But I knew even less.

3:49Like I cannot even imagine. I'm so literal reading a book. I remember first learning about symbolism and I was like, what do you mean it's not a pickle dish? What do you mean it's a phallic triple? How on earth would the she know? Why can't it just be that they want to have Pickles? Like I just could not conceive of that. I'm impressed that your brain understands what those things are.

4:13And then you would be the arbiter of it. And then you would you would write the pickle dish. By the way, that's a neat problem for listeners. The pickle dish symbolizes his lust for her. And then I would be the one to read it and go what? And and and kids my age, 10 years later, 20 years later, we'll be writing essays to impress me with my knowledge of the pickle dish. And that's that's essentially what I wanted. You know, you mentioned too, that pre Internet age of not knowing, you know, options and what to to rank. I guess this is also maybe part

4:50of my neurodivergence. I don't know if you remember and I don't even know if they still do it, but U.S. News and World Report every year would publish. Of course, they still did. The rankings of the colleges, I remember I think maybe freshman year going through that and I knew that deep down I didn't. I, I wanted to leave Texas to go to school. That really was my dream.

5:14That didn't happen, but that was I, you know, I just wanted to get out for a. Moment. It's too big. It is too big and just, you know, again, multitude of reasons. So I remember flipping through and go, okay, what schools in New York are affordable enough that in 3 1/2 years I can convince my mom that that I can go.

5:32And I was like, I'll go to like SUNY, I'll go to, I'll go to like a New York State school for, you know, at the time, 5500 per semester for a state school in New York. But I remember doing that and trying to budget and, like, pick my battles of where do I want to be geographically? But the idea of going, I would just have to be the US never crossed my mind. I would have, I would have loved it. It felt very much like you had to be valedictorian and then you became a Rhodes Scholar.

6:01And then it was this very highfalutin sort of thing that like this, you know, a little Mexican kid from San Antonio would never be able to do so. Just felt so, so foreign to me. Literally so foreign to me. I get it. So you know, part of my lore is that I graduated really early from college. I was 20 and then I from an SEC school. So it was certainly not any fancy program like Liza Jean talks about.

6:29And then I started grad school 3 weeks later because I would do anything but go home and I had no idea. So I had started an international business. I hated it. And then I took my first psychology class and you know, I was hooked because it was the first thing I'd ever studied that was really interesting to me. My parents were appalled.

6:52Then I transferred. I was at a liberal arts school in Memphis, TN and a transfer from there to Auburn and I switched over to psychology. And but then after about a year of that, I felt like, and this is so true. It was so archaic. Like in the beginning when you're scratching the surface, it's so interesting, especially in that time period of like, wow, learning about the brain.

7:18And then so deeper you get into it, you realize they don't know anything, especially at the time. Now there's just infinite. This is 40 years ago. You know, there's infinitely more studies and whatever else, 35 years, whatever. But they had never studied women. You know, it just, it was so dumb. And so I was like, OK, I got to, I got to get something else under my belt.

7:42So I did AI had a French minor and I did a second business minor. And So what I decided to do, it takes a lot to change majors. You end up changing, adding years onto your school day. So I found out that I could get a master's degree in marketing in a year, and I'd still graduate at the same time because I had shaved a year off of school at Auburn. And so I was going to do that in Alabama. And famously, my first day of my second semester, I dropped out in Defiance and tried to move France. And, and of course, again,

8:17there's just no information out there. And now I know I absolutely could have gone and gotten that master's degree in France, but I could not have deduced that in a trillion years that it would have been possible that I could go and and get my degree in France. And one of the things that, you know, we'll learn as Liza Jean talks a little bit about, you know, how do you study abroad and what is the missions admission process like?

8:48Is that the information is there? And I think it is like, like most of moving abroad it, it's not easy, but it's simpler than I think most people think it is that it can be a very straightforward process. Now there's more things that they're going to look for. And like we mentioned at the top that you have to know what you're going to study. There is no, I'm just going to get my basics out of the way and figure it out here that you have to have, you know, you have to be make some choices more than

9:15anything, but that it isn't, you know, tons of hoops to jump through. It's, it's just, it's just different hoops. There's no, not more hoops. I think it's just different hoops to to jump through, to get accepted internationally. And that's really exciting. So, you know, my hope is that the takeaways, those options are there, whether you're an adult looking to get a, you know, get your master's, get your PhD, or you have a high schooler who is considering studying abroad, that that the options are there.

9:48And it doesn't have to be as intimidating and definitely not as intimidating it as it was for us. And, you know, in in the 90s trying to with me with my U.S. news and World Report magazine sitting in gym class like I'm flipping through a travel brochure and that's my gosh had available to us. Yeah. Absolutely. And all those 10 million prospectuses they send you that all look identically the same.

10:10It really was a challenge. And then to understand what the options were available for us in life. You know, I had my mom who had been a secretary and then she became a realtor. My dad who got a job at the phone company in literally 1952 and had worked there his whole life. And so their advice was, OK, well, you go to college and then after you graduate college, you go to the power company and the phone company and you take your.

10:40Get a good civil service job. You or you work for the city, you work for the state because there's there's dependability in that. And I just, I couldn't bear it. But if someone had taught me, if I had known, you know, what careers existed out there. I love marketing and I love entrepreneurship. And so to be able to pursue those, but you kind of have to find it on my own.

11:02So I think it is more competitive now, but they're also more tools and more support to help you get there. Today on the Americans Abroad podcast, we are joined by Liza Jean Miezejeski to talk about what you need to know about studying abroad. Liza Jean, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So from what I know, you studied abroad, is that correct?

11:35Yes, I right after high school got my bachelor's abroad and then my master's later on as well. So what prompted you to study outside of the US versus going to AUS institution? Well, when I first started looking for universities or colleges in the US, my #1 criteria was that they have a study abroad program. And so that was like every school I looked at was pretty much based on that point. And then one day I was in the car with my mom and we heard on NPR that Americans were going to school in Germany to avoid student debt.

12:10And we were like, oh, that is, that's really cool. That's exactly kind of where I'm at right now of like wanting to avoid student debt, but really wanting to study abroad and of course, get an education. And it just sounded perfect. And that kind of inspired the whole journey that I ended up on. So when you first had the idea of studying abroad, was the financial aspect the driver or exploration? What was your main impetus for wanting to study abroad? The financial part was huge.

12:40Like I, for example, really liked the idea of being in England because I had some friends in England. But at the end of the day, it was like studying in the UK as a foreigner had tuition that was even more than in state tuition in the US. So my mom was like, if you're going abroad, we're saving money to do it.

12:59So UK is not going to happen or England isn't going to happen. But you know, mainland Europe had really affordable tuition that I could study debt free and, you know, manage to get through that way. And also I just really wanted to travel. I was 18. I wanted to see the world and it was something I was dreaming of.

13:19Plus, of course, education is very important. So it kind of ended up as this like serendipitous, meets all my criteria sort of moment. So what school did you end up studying at for your undergrad? So I went to a school called Anglo American University for my bachelor's. It's in Prague, Czech Republic, small like private school, American accredited and Czech accredited.

13:46So it seems like a really good place at the time. So did you need to speak Czech? No. No, it was it. The whole university is fully taught in English. Like, everything is. Yeah, the entire university, just everything's done in English, which is great. But there are even, like, big public schools, local universities almost always have at the bachelor's level, you know, like one to five bachelor's programs taught in English.

14:13At the master's levels, there can be, like, there can be more master's degrees taught in English than whatever the local language is. So there's plenty of options. So what did you study? So my undergrad was humanity, society and culture, and then my master's, which I did in Belgium, was digital media and society. And how did you choose which school you were going to go to?

14:39OK, two-part question. How did you decide what school you were going to go to? And what were the other kids like? Was it tons of American kids? Were they from all over the world? What was that experience like? Gosh, I mean, my experience in Prague at AAU and in Belgium at VUB were so different because one was a small private school and the other one was a big public school. And I wanted to have that difference when it came to like my masters, that I wanted something different, not because I didn't like my undergrad, but

15:10because I, I just wanted to experience a big university, big space. But in my undergrad, it was very international because it's, you know, it's a school targeting international students. And so I had friends from all over the world. And it changed a lot also throughout the time that I was there because Americans, I think I got abroad like just before a lot of American students were thinking about, OK, what are the other options out there?

15:37This like, you know, exodus of Americans had kind of just started because it was 2017 when I went. So it was like still when I started, I was the I knew one other girl who was a born and raised American. Everybody else was who was like American, quote UN quote. American was like AUS passport holder who was born in India and grew up in Mexico or like one of my friends grew up on a sailboat sailing around the world and spent most of his time in Malaysia and Mexico or China. Like every people were kind of

16:10from everywhere, but they were like American ish like third culture kids. It was mostly third culture kids. And then you know, students from around Europe who were coming to the Czech Republic as well, but mostly third culture kids, international students from like students who are international students. Before college when I got to my as I studied there, a lot more Americans started to join. Like I started to see the population of like born and raised Americans really grow over my like 4 years at that university.

16:41And then in my master's it was like completely different, mostly just like other European students who wanted to get to Brussels because Brussels is a hub for working in politics. So it's a lot of like students who are just moving for the first time or just going to another country to study abroad sort of thing. So it was very different environments, but both very interesting.

17:03So what was the admissions process like for you? Gosh. So I didn't apply to any American universities. So I'm a little bit less familiar actually with College in the US, but in my undergrad it was a little bit more straightforward I think than what I would have had to do for American College admissions. There was I had to write actually for my undergrad, I had to write essays. That's a little bit unusual in Europe. Usually it's a letter of motivation, a CV and obviously like your transcript.

17:39All of that. In my undergrad, a little bit more like the American education system where I had two essays to write about. They had like essay questions that I had to answer. And then rather than come up with like the typical college essay that usually Americans have to do. And then, yeah, CV and I had an interview for my master's. It was a much more typical like the European admissions process, which was just letter of motivation, CV transcript. And I think that's it, like very straightforward, pretty much just like bullet points of like, do you meet these requirements? So no standardized tests.

18:23In my bachelor's it was optional. It is very common though, in a bachelor's level that you need to have a PS or SA, TS because or at least an associate's degree. So standardized tests are are actually pretty important for the bachelor's level. For the master's level, unless you do like the GRE or the GMAT, like for something in business or management, usually no.

18:45But for a bachelor's degree, because. Because high school in the US isn't considered equivalent to high school in Europe most of the time, yeah. We have to prove ourselves a little bit more in order to get into university out here. So usually there's AAP requirement either that you like, there's some schools where they just want to see that you took the AP level class and passed it just to know, OK, you can study at an AP level or a college level, but usually they have to see the results of your AP exams. And every schools, you know,

19:19because there's a range of universities, there's the like version, there's like Oxford and Cambridge, of course, but then there's also just like, you know, the equivalent of like in state school or even like Community College. There's all sorts of ranges of options. So each school kind of designates like, OK, if you want to study here, you need to get either this SAT score or this combination of AP scores, something like that.

19:41But usually it's becoming very, very important to have some sort of standardized test coming out of high school from the US. And so an American standardized tests work. Yes, yes, they they have to. They designate different criteria for every country. So they already have like they know what you need for they specifically state what an American will need. And an associate's degree.

20:04So that's interesting. So you could go to a junior college and then transfer into a foreign university. It actually wouldn't be a transfer, it'd be admission from first year. So an associate's degree in the US is considered high school in Europe. So you have to have completed your associate's degree and then you can. Apply for your bachelors.

20:22But bachelors are only three years out here, so you know, it's a five year to get your bachelor rather than, you know, four years. So it's not a transfer with two more years, It's only three years. It's not too bad, but it is, yeah. Like it's still starting from square one, basically. That does. That is quite a statement on the US education system though. OK so I also have to ask what is on a child's CB? How do you know the CB at 1718?

20:51That's a good question. Clubs, any jobs that you had, anything relevant to what you've like, any, any volunteering, any because they don't care so much about like, like they want to know what you've done. So OK, wait, back up. The context for this is that you cannot go into a degree undecided in Europe. You're applying directly to a program, not to a university. So you get accepted to that program or that degree and rather than like just applying to the school and then choosing a major later.

21:27So they only want to know what's relevant to you joining that program rather than you as a student. So if, for example, you apply for something in poli sci, like you do an international relations bachelor, they will want to know that you did Model UN and maybe you volunteered for a local political campaign or you volunteered in with refugees or something. That's something I did in high school. I'm like pulling for my own CV, but like that sort of thing. They want to see that, but they don't care so much that you, I don't know that you worked in a

22:03pizza restaurant, which is also was on my CV, like that sort of thing. It's good to have you. If you need to fill your CV, then you can put that type thing on there because there are skills that are transferable from any job that you've had. But it's, yeah, it's a lot of like extracurriculars, volunteer positions, just things that you've done, even if it's outside of like a career space.

22:26So now that you've finished your studies, what do you do for work? No. So I that's what led me here. I founded a company called Skola where we're an educational consultancy helping Americans attend university in the EU and UK. And how did you decide to start this business? So I actually, you know, graduated and then did the typical route that everybody takes after graduating.

22:54I became a consultant and that was honestly really interesting. I worked in a really interesting space. But I have been doing this sort of thing informally for a long time. Where I've been, you know, ever since I moved abroad, I had people coming to me and saying, like, how do I do this? Where should I go? And I did internships and I worked in similar capacities.

23:15And I've always worked around education. So after a couple years of, you know, working as a consultant, I felt like this mission that I started. So I started posting on social media about it during COVID and grew an audience through that, you know, just giving advice to students, talking about what it means to be an American International student in Europe. And, you know, after I hung up my hat on that and decided to get a big girl job, I just felt like I never quite finished that mission.

23:46So I quit my job and I said, OK, I'm going to, I feel like there's a, a space that needs to be filled where, you know, existing services weren't filling the need that I thought needed to be filled. You know, I thought that there should be people in Europe who have been down this path helping other students. I saw that there were, you know, really big corporations that offered databases or people helping others get an education abroad without ever having done it themselves. And I think there was just like this big gap to understand not just the education side of

24:23things, but the life and the post grad career side of things with going and becoming an international student, using that as your path to live abroad. So I was like, OK, this is something that I see a need for and I can do that. I can fill that gap. And so yeah, quit my job and decided to go all in on Skola.

24:44What do you think your life would be like if you had pursued a different path? If you had gone? Were you living in North Carolina? Where were you living in the USI? Was living in Connecticut and yeah, it was. Sorry, if you'd gone to Yale, what do you think your life would be like now compared to what it is in Belgium?

25:07Gosh, that's such a good question. I I don't even know, like it's so it in like high school, I took every opportunity to travel. It felt like this path was like meant for me sort of. I guess I, I guess I'd maybe be like the only place I could picture myself in, in the US is maybe New York.

25:29I think that goes back to my like criteria of walkability in a city and needing to be somewhere that's very walkable with public transportation. But I guess I'd end up in a city, but I don't know. I would have found some other passion, but it just doesn't feel like a path that I don't know. Or I would have found my way abroad some other some other way.

25:48But it's always like this was always something that, you know, from the moment I could start thinking about after high school plans, this just kind of made sense. And it worked for me. I can't even imagine how different things would be if I had stayed in the US, how different I would be. I'd be a totally different person for sure. So it's really hard to place myself in that position because I'm like, who would I even be?

26:08Like very American. I guess I think of myself as American, but sometimes when I go back I feel less American so I have no idea. It's very sliding doors. Yeah, it's very sliding doors. But I like the idea that all paths lead to you being abroad no matter what what you take. So are you seeing more kids in general who are American kids who are wanting to get degrees abroad?

26:33Yeah, and universities are saying it too. When I speak to universities, they the they all say the same thing, that the a number of American applicants has grown exponentially over the past three years, five years, 10 years, like it is becoming a much more common path than it used to be. What are some of the things that parents and kids looking to study abroad need to know before even exploring this this option for them?

27:01Well, planning early is really important. So if you're a high school student and you want to get bachelor's abroad, it is very important to plan your high school education accordingly. Try to get in APS and start studying for the SAT based on whatever scores of like potential countries or universities you want to get into. But especially making sure that there are a lot of APS that are relevant to what you want to study built into the schedule, into your schedule.

27:26If you want to do anything around STEM, you need to have like a math or something like that, either at the like a dual enrollment math class or an AP, some sort of mathematics AP and just planning like in advance in that way, planning your education accordingly. But this is also becoming like sometimes very relevant is a lot of my clients are actually older students going back to school. And so a lot of it's a lot of adults looking to get a master's degree or a PhD.

27:56And for that, what's good is we talked a lot about like American high school education not being considered equivalent, but a bachelor's from the US is considered equivalent to a European bachelor's. So in that front you have that is like, you know you're already at the academic level that you need to be. However, switching career paths or switching degree topics is much harder.

28:18You usually can't do something where you got like a undergraduate degree in engineering and switch to history. I mean, that's a lot easier than the inverse. You definitely can't do like an undergrad in history and go to an engineering degree. But like the point is you have to be, you have to have relevant undergrad because in Europe it's like every degree builds on the other and eventually is kind of built to build up to a PhD level. But they're really, it's not so easy to switch even halfway through a degree to switch majors or something like that. It's pretty challenging.

28:49So it's all about kind of like keeping things relevant and figuring out as as early as possible what you want to do. Even from high school, you know your APS being relevant into a bachelor's, that's relevant into a master's, that's relevant to what you want to do down the line. Are there options for students who have maybe started their education here in the US at the university level?

29:10Maybe they're two years into their degree and decide they want to study abroad. What does that look like? Or is that even an option? It is. It's becoming. I can tell that universities are definitely starting to get more inquiries about transferring because I see it on a lot more university websites. But transferring can be pretty tricky. It's not impossible, but it's harder because they're going to evaluate every class and you're so there's a, it's different credits every country kind of evaluate.

29:40Usually I think it's like 1 American credit is like 2 European credits or the opposite way. It's one of the other. So it's a pretty easy like translation. But. It's not common to do so. You can if you're 1, if you're only one year into college and you want to transfer on in like to enter this your sophomore year of College in Europe, that's totally possible. But you would be starting again from year one because now they'll be like, oh, you finished year of college. That's, you know, it's similar enough to a associates that you can then start from that first

30:13year of college or that first year of a bachelor's in Europe. But if you're two years in, it gets a little bit trickier. You can, you can do it, but there's always a chance they just don't take all your transfer credits. Which I guess is also a similar situation in the US where you can transfer but you don't know if all your credits are going to be accepted until you're already there.

30:31So what are the odds? Do do people have a good shot of getting jobs after they graduate? I know that some student visas let you stay on for a year or two and look for work. And what are the most solid, stable things to study? So. Jobs is always, it's always a question because you need, you know, a work visa afterwards, you need, you have usually about a year to figure out, get a job or something like that.

31:01The best bet is always to do internships in your final year and hopefully transfer that into a job afterwards. But it's it's something that we focus on a lot with Skola is preparing students early on for postgrad career, making sure that they know all their options. So one of the most viable options for a new graduate who doesn't have much career experience is to start freelancing. A freelancing visa can be a lot easier to qualify for it than getting a sponsored job.

31:31So that's something I really encourage a lot of my students to start working on as early as possible. Start taking some freelance work while studying, start building a portfolio and start off with freelancing. And then once you've reached, you know, a couple years into work, you can always transition into a normal job, quote UN quote. And that's like a lot easier as far as like getting approved for visas.

31:55But when I like the question of like, what's the safest route or what's the best things to study for me, it's always what are you most passionate about? Like what is something that you are going to love diving into and studying and learning about and pursue opportunities in? Because that's like the biggest, that's the biggest indicator of like success afterwards is like, are you studying something you love so much that you will seek out opportunities, you'll talk to your professors and they can direct you in the right way? What like what internships are you getting? What position are you putting

32:29yourself in throughout your studies for, you know, that will just naturally transition into post grad success rather than studying something that's considered safe like accounting and then becoming a mediocre accountant and like hating your life and not wanting to work. You know, that's always like the worst thing is to do something that feels safe just because you're told that it's safe, rather than doing something you're passionate about and becoming, you know, top of your industry because you love what you do.

32:58You're always going to be more successful in loving what you do then hating what you do, even if it's it's considered safe. I think that's fantastic advice. You know, lean into the passion, lean into what's going to be sustainable for you and, and the advice overall has been absolutely fantastic. I want to switch gears just a little bit for our last question today. Is there anything that you miss about living in the US? That's such a good question and I've been thinking about it a lot since coming back from move abroad Con because I don't go to the US too often.

33:31And it was my first time in California too, because I'm from the East Coast. So I there's just some elements of American culture that I really love. I really like that people just like compliment you all the time. We give so many compliments in America, like I'm, it throws me off. I'm always like, are you talking to me?

33:48Like I'm not used to it anymore, that sort of thing. But I love it. And I do miss speaking English with people. I think that might be one of the things where I'm kind of like, oh, it is so much easier just to speak English. Like not use my second language. My brain just like does not have to work as hard in public.

34:07But at the same time, like I can't, I can't imagine not having a second language now, you know, like I love that I get to work on second language, like my second language all the time. I'm learning French and Dutch and I don't recommend learning 2 languages at once. But my boyfriend's family is Flemish and they speak Dutch and I live in Brussels so we speak French and I don't recommend the situation at all.

34:28But it's the world that I live in so I'm learning 2 languages and I'm so like thankful for it. I love getting to do that. I can't imagine being in an English environment now and just losing all my languages but it does. I do like to feel my brain relax a little bit when I go back to the US and just, like, have easy communication with people.

34:48It's very nice, yeah. Well, if you are interested in exploring your options for studying abroad, you can find Liza Jean and her team at Skola at expatsi.com. Liza Jean, thank you so much for joining us on Americans Abroad. Thank you so much for having me, it's been great. Jen, do you know what time it is? I know what time it is. I always know what time it is when it is this time. And I wrote a song just to kick off our special Q&A session. This time I wrote it completely from scratch. Lyrics and music.

35:32Out of your lovely little brain. Jen Barnett featuring Squiggy. OK, here's how it goes on the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again. The life I love is moving abroad with my friends. See that lyric? Definitely. I can't wait to get on the road again. Completely original, never heard it before. Especially as someone from Texas, I have never heard that song. Like a band of travellers, we go down the highway. So I think this question is a nice little Segway after our interview with with Liza Jean from Skola. And this person asks, I'm wondering, are there any companies that hire American

36:19expats in any of the Schengen countries? So can you talk a little bit about job options and maybe pathways to finding work in those European areas? Yes. So it depends on the field that you're in, right? And if you are not in a field yet, because you're somebody who is entering college, you know, my best recommendation is to follow Liza Jean's path and figure out what you might want to do and find a great program in Europe and use that as a jumping off point.

36:50Obviously, everybody knows that the easiest time to get hired is when you are fresh out of school. I don't know why. You know, it's when you know the least, but you have no baggage, you're moldable, you're cheap, and that's a really great time to do it. Now, in terms of companies, the easiest thing is to work for an American company that has operations in the country where you want to go, because then it's just as simple as being transferred, which is, you know, listen, all these paths are hard work, but that is something you could accomplish.

37:22So if you were to go and work for Google or whatever, who has operations in every country around the world and then seek and then seek to be transferred, then that is one way to do it. In terms of companies that are in other countries, nobody is hanging, putting out Americans wanted ad, right? They want nurses or electrical engineers or pipe fitters or whatever. And they are not concerned about your country of origin. They're concerned about your experience, what country you speak, what country, what language you speak, your availability and and things like that. Now, I will say that from X

38:08Patsy's point of view, we would love to eventually get connected with companies and sell them on the virtues of hiring American employees because Americans do have a lot to offer, right? Like as Laz, as Jean pointed out, maybe our high school education is not the same as theirs, but college educated Americans are at a premium. Most, most countries recognize that US universities are highest ranked in the world outside of, you know, the number one universities here and there and so on. And that's why so many other countries send kids to the US to study.

38:46And so if you do want people who are native English speakers, who have great educations, who have American sensibilities, if that's something that you want and it is not all bad, you know, we don't, we're not going to hold the US to a not to a higher standard, but we don't hold the US above other countries or believe in American exceptionalism.

39:09But there are things that Americans do very well. We're very, very independent and entrepreneurial. We're very much self starters. We are, we can take a hit, we can take a note. We work really hard and things like that. And there are appeals to it also if you are a company that wants to market to Americans or wants to sell to Americans. I had one client who worked in procurement for the state of California and wasn't sure how they would get a job abroad because of course government jobs do not translate abroad. You do not get to go just pick

39:46up and become the procurement director for Albania. However, my point was there have go apply at the companies of the products you procure, you know, and so now they have somebody who knows the insurance and outs of the California procure system and has connections there. So you may have to think about it creatively, but there aren't any countries that are specifically looking for Americans.

40:14I will give an exception to this though, which is that British Columbia and Ontario do actively seek out American healthcare professionals, nurses and doctors. And so do New Zealand and Australia, so, and those are countries. Yeah, those are countries that a lot of Americans are interested in, those English speaking countries. For sure, and if you haven't studied something, go be a doctor.

40:44Go go be a doctor. It it it is a brain surgery. Except when it's brain surgery. Right. Well, if you have a question you would like us to address here on the podcast, you can e-mail it to podcast at expatsi.com. Americans Abroad is an Expatsi production. Please like, share, subscribe and leave a review. Are you thinking about moving abroad?

41:08Start with our quiz at expatsi.com. That's expatsi.com.