2 ms·
I agree that it's highly dependent on personality, but for me I think "living" somewhere has worked well so far to broaden my perspective. I recently moved fro
by pearkes 13y ago
I agree that it's highly dependent on personality, but for me I think
"living" somewhere has worked well so far to broaden my perspective.
I recently moved from San Francisco to Berlin, and have been living here
and learning (at times, rather painfully) how different cultures can be,
even between two of the dominant western nations. To say it's been a
worthy experience doesn't do it justice. Having to restart your entire
social life — with deflated self-confidence — is a fantastic learning
experience.
One key aspect of it, in my opinion, is there's no flight home. You
just left, and you don't plan on coming back. When things get
challenging, there is no comfort that your plane is waiting. There is
no plane. You have to pull yourself together and make it work.
Many folks who visit this website are blessed with a skill-set
rooted in distribution. Generations before us simply couldn't
imagine moving around the world and still being comfortable and happy
with their work and their means of providing for themselves.
If you have this opportunity, to leave your comfort zone, challenge
yourself and not have a "home" to go back to when the journey is over, I
recommend you take it.
- dekz 13y agoHow are you paying the bills? I just left Berlin after a short stay and wouldn't mind turning that into a longer one.
- pearkes 13y agoConsulting, only American co's right now. Though, the local tech scene is open to American / English only folks, as it's already so diverse. I know that SoundCloud (arguably the biggest name in the Berlin tech scene, at least on the consumer web front) is hiring American developers and pulling them over. They even encourage it on their jobs page.[1] Generally, bills aren't too bad here, I cook my own meals and live with roommates. The lifestyle is actually pretty fantastic. Cost of living is substantially less then SF was for me. Part of that is the local economy, but I've found I fundamentally socialize differently, as people aren't desiring to eat every meal out, drink expensive drinks. Come back! You can come over for beers. [1] http://soundcloud.com/jobs http://soundcloud.com/jobs (grep non-German)