Badger Abroad - Go Global! The International Careers Website (UW-Madison)

Janet Heiss, Ph.D. student in Educational Administration.
Anticipated graduation: May 2005.

Like many other students who study abroad, I came home from my semester in Freiburg, Germany feeling like I had a lot of fun, traveled throughout Europe, met a lot of cool Americans, and spoke a lot of English. Although my German language skills improved some as a result of living in Germany, I did not have the full immersion experience that I had originally anticipated. It was simply too easy to hang out with my new American friends, to travel to other interesting countries, and to speak English. As a result, I chose to move abroad to work for a year after I graduated from college.

As a result of promotional materials in the career advising office at my university, I applied to the JET Program (teaching English in Japan) and the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals (a study/internship program in Germany). Of the two, I was accepted to the Congress-Bundestag program.

The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals is a one-year scholarship program for Americans 18-25 years old. The program consists of two months German language study, four months study at a German university, and a five month internship with a German company. While I was taking classes at the University in Bonn, I applied for internships with four different organizations in the city. I chose to work with the Organization for International Community Service in Bonn, Germany. My work duties consisted of promoting international volunteer projects to German students, reading applications, translating program and arrival information into English for foreign volunteers, and leading orientation workshops for volunteers.

I applied to internships with four different organizations in Bonn and was offered positions at all of them due to being a native English speaker. I was surprised as an applicant how valuable my English language skills were to the foreign companies where I applied. I had American friends who were living and working in Germany at the time who did not speak any German. They were hired as English teachers or at English-speaking companies (neither of which is uncommon) via job postings in the English-speaking newspaper in Bonn. In Germany, an individual will be given a work permit once they secure employment with a company, so it is possible to move to Germany first and then to find employment and receive a work permit.