How I Landed my First Job Abroad

Reading time: 3 mins, 47 seconds

I grew up in a family that didn’t travel often, so instead I found myself constantly dreaming of experiencing the richness in places I saw on TV. Any Disney Channel Original Movie inspired me beyond words. Lizzie McGuire chasing love and fame across Rome. The Cheetah girls prancing down the streets of Spain and India. The Stevens family surviving on an exotic island in the Even Stevens Movie.

I vividly remember the first global friendships I made as a child. My third-grade classmate and her family coming to America from England and later moving to Zimbabwe. My best friend in middle school whose mom was from Germany and dad lived in Thailand.

I yearned for these stories, trinkets, pictures and connections to places that I had never heard of before. Visions that would somehow leave me in absolute awe.

Unfortunately, even with the magic of these anecdotes and vibrant images, cultural engagement and adventure was always feeling drastically out of reach.

Continuing to grow up and learn more about myself and the world, the desire to work in an international environment only multiplied. I was finally able to study abroad and explore Europe during university, but I left that experience knowing it wasn’t enough.

I wanted to plant my feet in another country and become immersed in a culture different from my own, but the details of how this could be achieved with actual stability and a promise of more permanence than a backpacking trip or two week volunteer experience trailed my wishful thinking.

That’s when I discovered the possibility of teaching English abroad.

Once the idea was in my head, I buckled down into research mode. I quickly discovered that teaching English overseas was not only an avenue to live in another country, but a window for growth and support paired with compensation packages that could accompany my dreams to travel and see the world. How could I not apply and see where this role could take me?

I had no professional teaching experience, but my eagerness to help others and interest in cultural diversity had me soon signing an offer with English First to move my life to a city in the middle of China.

A city that I didn’t realize existed slowly became home in all senses of the word for throughout next two years.

Bonds were formed with friends that now feel like family. My preferences in food became wildly different from when I first arrived. I was able to pick up on a language I had never spoken before.

Above all, my eyes and heart were opened wide to a culture that I never would have been able to get to know so closely had I just been passing through as a tourist or learning about on TV.

This feeling of connectedness to the Chinese culture was combined with adventures I never before imagined being privileged enough to have.

Camping under the stars in the Gobi Desert, riding bikes through the karst mountain formations of Guilin, listening to the chants and songs of the Miao people in a GuiZhou mountain village, and climbing across the vast Great Wall of China were only a few moments that stole my breath away and further catalyzed my adventure seeking soul. By the end of my two years in China I had traveled by fast train, plane, bus, sleeper train, and taxi to 13 different provinces in China.

Having committed to a full-time job in China, I was also lucky enough to explore 8 other countries in Southeast Asia. I spent holidays roaming the rice fields of Bali and watching the sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple ruins in Cambodia.

I rode on the back of a motorbike around a mountainous island in Vietnam and took baths with Elephants in the jungles of Thailand.

I woke up with a cup of hot matcha tea next to Mt. Fuji and let a monkey steal my water bottle in Malaysia.

If I were to see my younger self again and tell her these stories, I know she wouldn’t believe me.

I’d tell her that all she’d have to do is teach English abroad and she’d probably respond with something like, “ew I don’t like school!”

Many things have changed since I was sitting in my childhood living room dreaming of the colosseum and steps of Park Güell. Back then I could only envision myself amidst colorful international scenes. Now, I have a collection of pictures and memories to show that my feet physically touched spaces that were once only a dream.