I would like to live internationally for a few months up to a few years depending on the circumstances. I would need to find a job (I have CpE and EE degrees) and would prefer that English is a spoken language (even if it's not the official language). I only know "survival" Spanish. Does anyone currently live in such a place or have any experience in moving to a different country? I am currently 25yo if that matters.

11/20/2007 11:23:25 AM

Canada.

11/20/2007 11:26:39 AM

Canada, Ireland, England

11/20/2007 11:27:30 AM

I currently live in Sweden and it sounds like it is just the type of place that you are looking for. Everyone (with very few exceptions) speaks english very well here, so much so that it is very difficult to learn swedish. The job market is pretty competetive since it is a very well educated population but it is heavily technology based which seems to be where you'd fit in (check out http://www.thelocal.se/. they have a pretty decent job board and nearly all of the listings are in english).

That said, if you do not like long, cold, dark winters it may not be the place for you. I was born and raised in NC and while it took a bit to adjust to the darkness, I have grown to really enjoy the winters. Besides, you can't beat 20+ hours of sunlight per day in the summer!

11/20/2007 11:31:34 AM

England is pretty cool. Everyone is pretty chill and the weather isn't nearly as bad as everyone says. The Pound is KILLING the dollar, I'm no economist but I would think you could work here for a few years, move back and have a leg up financially.

11/20/2007 11:37:36 AM

Netherlands

11/20/2007 11:59:12 AM

I did not have any issues while in Finland and Norway, both are awesome countries.

11/20/2007 12:05:17 PM

Quote :

"That said, if you do not like long, cold, dark winters it may not be the place for you"

ive always wanted to move to a place like that and just do nothing but write music and literature for the entire winter. cold and dark does that to me all the time.

11/20/2007 1:15:11 PM

^^^^I heard it was pretty difficult to work in England for an extended amount of time. Same for Australia.

11/20/2007 1:32:08 PM

You could work in any of the Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman).

They (employers) love white people in those countries, and they will pay you shitloads of money, along with furnished top notch accomodation, tickets, health insurance, car, etc. English is spoken at all workplaces pretty much.

11/20/2007 1:51:27 PM

australia seems kinda cool

11/20/2007 1:53:55 PM

I'd love to visit austrailia but I think I'd rather live in europe, more chances to travel and see different countries.

I've seriously considered to europe for a few years to work....or I guess longer if I started developing a decent career.

11/20/2007 1:55:39 PM

Thx for all the advice (keep it coming)!

I've been entertaining the idea of Australia, but it seems that it's hard to get there and actually live for more than 1 year. They have 4 month work visa somethings, but it's kinda confusing.

Sweden - haven't thought about it until I started researching more today. I will definitely need to look into this a bit more.

UK - not rly interested in moving there. IDK why, just don't want to.

Amsterdam - they widely speak english, but Dutch is not easy to learn (so i've been told). They have a lot of good IT type work there including Engineering.

Spain - I studied in Southern Spain for 2 months a few years ago. It was kinda dirty, but Barcelona possibly?

Ireland - seem to have a good eco and speak English. Hows the weather?

Canada - this is the easy choice for Americans...but will it be that much different? Does "the Man" extend his rule in to the land to our North?

One of the main reasons that I want to leave is to travel and broaden my culture, but it is also because I disagree with the current state of America. Declining value of the USD, never-ending war, i could go on and on (yes I support Ron Paul).

Anyways, keep it coming!!

11/20/2007 2:40:21 PM

new zealand and belgium

11/20/2007 2:48:02 PM

Dutch isn't that hard to learn. Granged I already knew some german which made it easier, but dutch is inbetween english and german, so I find that it's easy to figure out alot of it if they're speaking slowly. Again, that may be the german experience.

Not really a problem, though, as in any major city everyone speaks english and even assumes you speak english if you look the least bit like you aren't from there. They're amazing at knowing to start speaking to you in english, though it kinda makes you feel lame.

11/20/2007 2:53:30 PM

yeah, i realized that when I was in The Netherlands. They just knew that I wasn't Dutch and spoke to me in perfect English. Makes me regret not taking Spanish seriously. Blasted Americans and their need for only 1 language.

^^isn't it really hard to find decent working in New Zealand? Do they have a tech industry?

also, why Belgium? Do you have any experience with the country?



[Edited on November 20, 2007 at 3:02 PM. Reason : i wanna move!]

11/20/2007 2:59:07 PM

Quote :

"isn't it really hard to find decent working in New Zealand? Do they have a tech industry?"

http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/media_comm/2007/Budget2007.cfm

Quote :

"also, why Belgium? Do you have any experience with the country?"

i've been there a couple of times--i dunno, it just struck me as a cool place to live

11/20/2007 3:07:18 PM

Quote :

"You could work in any of the Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman). "

Do they really love white people there even if american???

Their is no way I could move there
- With some exceptions no alcohol
- I heard the Female:Male Ratio is horrendous b.c of all the working immigrants
- I like warmer climate but 120* in the summer is even above my tolerance.

If I moved outside the US some places I might consider would include.....
- UK
- Austrailia
-New Zealand
- Canada (only British Columbia or one of the coastal provinces for the moderating winter factor)

Places I might consider but would have to learn a new language would be
- Sweden
- Germany
- Argentina
- Puerto Rico

[Edited on November 20, 2007 at 3:16 PM. Reason : a]

11/20/2007 3:09:57 PM

one of the chicks i work with used to work with INS and she flew all over the world escorting deportees back to their home countries--she said that of the places she'd been, dubai is where she'd most like to live

[Edited on November 20, 2007 at 3:14 PM. Reason : &]

11/20/2007 3:14:19 PM

Quote :

"isn't it really hard to find decent working in New Zealand? Do they have a tech industry?"

DUDE... NZ is one of the most developed countries in the world... he said New Zealand, not [Papua] New Guinea

11/20/2007 3:21:17 PM

yeah NZ is pretty bad ass

11/20/2007 3:29:51 PM

wow, looks like they are starving for Engineers in NZ. I"ll have to really look in to this. I wonder how I would start the job search for NZ...it's not like I can interview easily irl.

Should I get a head-hunter....if so, how much do they typically charge?

[Edited on November 20, 2007 at 4:25 PM. Reason : ]

11/20/2007 4:25:19 PM

http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?cy=NZ&aj=New+Zealand

11/20/2007 4:31:32 PM

I actually wouldn't mind living in the UK were it not so expensive.

11/20/2007 5:47:56 PM

IRAN!!!!

oh wait, that's one of the best countries for americans to bomb... sorry

11/20/2007 8:21:45 PM

It's a common mistake.

11/20/2007 8:47:15 PM

Oregon.

11/20/2007 8:50:00 PM

i think it'd be best for america to move Australia so we could be closer to the cuddable koala bears

and aussie womens

11/20/2007 9:32:35 PM

South Africa
beautiful country and cheap living, and tons to do.

11/21/2007 10:15:01 AM

america

11/21/2007 10:28:09 AM

new mexico. it's just like mexico but still has new car smell.

11/21/2007 10:39:57 AM

^^^i hear the AIDS there is AMAZING

[Edited on November 21, 2007 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

11/21/2007 10:42:40 AM

i so want to move to sweden now. hey SkiSalomonare life science jobs plentiful there?

11/21/2007 10:45:06 AM

you could always go back to school, they're tuition-free

11/21/2007 10:56:42 AM

Quote :

"Places I might consider but would have to learn a new language would be - Sweden"

You absolutely do not have to learn a foreign language to live in Sweden. Of course it is immensely helpful and certainly encouraged, but the fact remains that I can count the number of swedes that Ive encountered that dont speak english on two hands. And Ive lived here well over a year. There are also an abundance of free or very cheap language courses for foreigners to take.

Quote :

"i so want to move to sweden now. hey SkiSalomonare life science jobs plentiful there?"

I cant answer that with any authority as its not my field, but I have heard that they are plentiful depending on which specific area of life sciences you are in. What types of jobs are you interested in?

Quote :

"you could always go back to school, they're tuition-free"

Yeah, that too. I'd be lying if I said that free school wasnt one motivating factor in me doing my Masters here.

[Edited on November 21, 2007 at 11:05 AM. Reason : o]

11/21/2007 11:04:06 AM

[Edited on November 21, 2007 at 11:39 AM. Reason : ]

11/21/2007 11:38:02 AM

scandinavia and the netherlands are really good with english (other than english speaking countries) most of them you can barely pick out accents like in some places.

[Edited on November 21, 2007 at 1:08 PM. Reason : also nokia is finnish (if thats you bag of tricks)]

11/21/2007 12:54:10 PM

ag sciences, microbiolgy, biology, nutrition, biotechnology,

11/21/2007 12:58:50 PM

oh and molecular biology

11/21/2007 2:29:02 PM

Sweden is sounding better and better!!

11/21/2007 3:03:51 PM

are there really hot chicks all over sweden or do you work too much to know?

11/21/2007 3:53:53 PM

I'll ask some of my friends in the life sciences field what the job prospects are here.

Yes I am very busy right now writing my thesis, but since Im on my university's campus most days it does not prevent me from seeing lots of people. Yes, in my experience, there are hot women all over sweden. The good thing about swedish women isnt necessarily that they are individually hotter than everywhere else, its that there are very few ugly women. The average hottness is far higher than most places that ive been. Oh and they aren't all blond, in fact there are quite a few fake blonds here.

11/22/2007 6:57:57 AM

im looking to move to berlin some time.

11/22/2007 11:56:54 AM

What are the requirements for free education in Sweden? Certain amount of time lived there, certain costs instead, etc...

11/23/2007 4:55:43 AM

these are the programs i was looking at, they have links to pretty much everything you need to know:

http://www.kth.se/studies/master?l=en

there are plenty of other opportunities out there though. finnish universities are tuition-free, as were danish ones until very recently. there are others that are quite inexpensive, swiss and austrian being two, if i remember right

[Edited on November 23, 2007 at 8:52 AM. Reason : &c]

11/23/2007 8:29:06 AM

^^ The requirements for free education in Sweden is simple: Get accepted into the program of your choice. Prior to studying here, I had never set foot in sweden and I didnt speak any swedish. Obviously there are other costs involved with going to school here, flights to and from sweden, housing, food, student union fee, etc. Worst of all sweden is more expensive in general than Raleigh and the dollar continuously tanking makes it that much worse. That said, there are plenty of scholarship opportunities out there. If youre interested in studying in sweden, check out http://www.studyinsweden.se/templates/cs/SISFrontPage.aspx?id=4908. It is a government run website that specifically caters to attracting foreign students. It has listings of all masters programs in the country taught strictly in english and information about moving here, visas, etc.

^^^ I too would really like to live in Berlin at some point in the not too distant future. Ideally I could snag a diplomatic position at the embassy there in a year or two when the new one is finished being built.

11/23/2007 10:16:50 AM

Cuba
Iraq
Iran
Venezuela
Afganistan
Russia
North Korea
Pakistan
Libya
Yemen
Sudan
China

They love worship Americans in those countries.


[Edited on November 23, 2007 at 10:51 AM. Reason : ]

11/23/2007 10:51:34 AM

Come to Japan, they all speak some English, or so the Japanese government would have you believe.

11/24/2007 7:37:53 PM

for serial? i was wondering what a study abroad over there would be like.

are they all short and worship blonde people?

11/24/2007 7:41:08 PM

dont move anywhere until the dollar recover especially against the euro

[Edited on November 24, 2007 at 9:10 PM. Reason : w]

11/24/2007 9:09:33 PM