As an AuPair stationed in Maria Saal, Austria, I will have ample time to travel to various places around Europe during this next year. Here's your chance to travel along with me vicariously ;)
I always knew I wanted to be abroad after finishing undergrad, but I wasn't sure how I was going to go about it. Would I backpack across the continent? Hop around from one friends' place to another? Would I volunteer with an outreach organization?
The possibilities were endless, but the realities were few. Going abroad for a year without an income was unrealistic. Some can do it, but that is not my first choice.
How can I get a job overseas? What do I do about applications, work visas, and contracts?
I looked into working with various "gap year" organizations, volunteering for the Peace Corps, helping kids in Africa, and applying for extended tourist visas, but all these websites that were tailored to post-high school and -college gave me conflicting and confusing answers. According to certain websites, I could not stay in a country for longer than a short period of time, which made my goal to be abroad for a year seemingly unattainable.
What I did next
These dead-ends did not discourage me, however. Although I was flailing with my individual research (I need to get better at google search keywords, apparently), the best opportunities for me landed in my lap.
First, I found out about higher-education-sponsored positions teaching English abroad through my French class at Indiana University. I applied to teach English in France with TAPIF, and was later accepted. Between this application and my acceptance, however, I was told by a friend about a much better means of working abroad that tailored to my wants and needs.
Sarah worked as an AuPair in Spain in the summer of 2018. She had a great experience both with her family and the people she met. When she told me about this program, I was astonished that such a thing existed. What a perfect fit! I would be living with a family with free board and food (unlike most of the other programs I had researched, including TAPIF), and I would only have to work 18 hours a week with weekends free plus 4 weeks off per year. This suited me better than TAPIF, since I knew I wanted to learn German and not just improve my already-present French skills. So, I signed up on AuPairWorld.com, made a profile, and got matched with families in Germany and Austria. My second Skype interview with a family landed me a position as an AuPair in little Maria Saal, Austria, in one of the most beautiful areas in the country.
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