{"id":2307,"date":"2017-06-27T18:37:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T18:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:42:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:42:49","slug":"lingo-map-careers-and-employability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/lingo-map-careers-and-employability\/","title":{"rendered":"Lingo Map: Careers and Employability"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s official. My year abroad is (pretty much) officially over. I\u2019ve had the most amazing year of my life and now it\u2019s time to get back to the normality (and scary prospect of final year) in Britain. I was in the UK for just under two weeks after getting back from Portugal, and now I\u2019m back in Madrid, where it where it all started. I\u2019m trying to make my year abroad last as long as possible, so now I\u2019m back in Spain to au pair for the next 5 weeks. As I\u2019m writing this post I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old doing my hair, \u201cporque estamos en la pel\u00fa<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Sightseeing in Lisbon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In many ways, this whole year has been preparing me for my future. Firstly, I\u2019ve seen that I can live abroad, on my own, coping with day to day life in a foreign country. I\u2019ve opened a Spanish bank account, I\u2019ve managed to set myself up with two new phone contracts, and I\u2019ve found myself an apartment to live in, tried to work out Portuguese bureaucracy (or lack thereof) relating to living as an exchange student abroad. The amount of paperwork that I have had to complete over the course of the past 16 months has been scary, but I promise that it has been worth all of it, even though it didn\u2019t feel like it would be at the time of me doing it.<\/p>\n

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Puerta de Alcal\u00e1 in Madrid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Living abroad is something that I\u2019ve wanted to do for almost 10 years, and now I know that I can do it. My dream job is working as an English teacher, what I did for the first 5 months I spent in Madrid, and now I know that it\u2019s actually achievable. I have a certification to teach English as a foreign language, I have experience in it, and I know that I\u2019m good at it too. Having this certificate and experience also means that I\u2019m more employable, and I have this simple career in my head, and knowing what I want to do should hopefully mean that I\u2019m less confused after I graduate (fingers crossed).<\/p>\n

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A graffiti wall in Lisbon that I found on my travels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Portugal, I also gained some valuable experience. It\u2019s made me think that maybe I could do a masters degree abroad, as long as it\u2019s in a subject that I\u2019m sure I\u2019m going to enjoy, unlike my Estudos Culturais <\/em>(Cultural Studies) course in Portugal. The foreign university experience itself was a good one, despite the fact that I didn\u2019t like the lack of organization at UMinho and the course, so I think I could do it again! I also think that studying abroad can be beneficial in terms of employability. If a company sees that you have studied in not just one but two, or maybe even three countries, they know that you are capable of living abroad, and coping with the challenges that studying in another language can throw at you, they know you can be trusted to work for them and deal well with the challenges that you will face in the workplace.<\/p>\n

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A Universidade do Porto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Challenge has been a big theme of the year abroad for everyone that has done one. For me, the moving away from my country and family thing wasn\u2019t a big one, as I\u2019m used to living far away from them and I\u2019ve lived in Spain before, but the whole idea of a real job in another country was definitely a challenge, as was studying abroad. I\u2019ve leant a lot from these challenges. I know that I can do anything I set my mind to, because I\u2019ve come so far in the past 12 months (please excuse the cheesiness). These challenges mean that I never stop learning, and that I\u2019m growing personally and professionally, two areas that go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

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The famous Barcelos cockrel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing is certain, the entire year has made me want to travel more and see more of the world. I\u2019ve made so many friends from all over Europe and I\u2019d love to go and visit them in the future. I\u2019ve read many travel blogs where the writers have worked in Asia on a temporary basis, teaching English so that they can get more money to spend whilst travelling. With the certificate that I received for teaching English, I too will hopefully be able to do this. Each experience is something new to add to the CV, which in turn increases your employability.<\/p>\n

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Making friends with the pigeons in Lisbon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don\u2019t want to look at my year abroad from only a professional point of view, because it has contained the most amazing experiences that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life, and I doubt that anything I ever experience again will measure up to this. I have met some amazing friends, lived in beautiful cities, visited some great sights and gone through it with people that I love. It has been a kind of reassurance that I can and will do anything. I now eat everything, which is definitely something that I\u2019ve had to work on. While I didn\u2019t exactly go mega healthy when I was in Portugal, like I\u2019d planned to do (my friend\u2019s mum actually said that I looked mucho m\u00e1s gordita<\/em>, which I think she meant as a compliment, but calling me fat doesn\u2019t exactly feel like a compliment to me), I managed to do so much that I\u2019d wanted to do.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story is, my year abroad is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I\u2019ve grown so much and become a different person because of it (I know it sounds like a clich\u00e9, but it really is true). Going back to university is going to be difficult, not just because of it being final year for me, but also because I\u2019m so used to my life in Europe that it will be hard to adjust to Cardiff again. However, I am definitely looking forward to everyone sharing their adventures with me, and telling everyone about mine.<\/p>\n

Hasta siempre,<\/em><\/p>\n

Molly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s official. My year abroad is (pretty much) officially over. I\u2019ve had the most amazing year of my life and now it\u2019s time to get back to the normality (and […]","protected":false},"author":1134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[268],"tags":[42,249],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","tag-erasmus","tag-europe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4QQbz-Bd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3470,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/why-study-abroad-vanessa-adkins-from-the-college-of-william-and-mary\/","url_meta":{"origin":2307,"position":0},"title":"“Why Study Abroad?” – Vanessa from W&M on studying at Cardiff","author":"Global Opportunities Globetrotters","date":"July 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Why Study Abroad? I decided to study abroad first and foremost because I wanted to travel.\u00a0 I\u2019m from a very rural area of Virginia, so I grew up always wanting to see more of the world. I also wanted to push myself outside of my comfort zone, but still have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Incoming Students at Cardiff"","block_context":{"text":"Incoming Students at Cardiff","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/category\/incoming-students-at-cardiff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2759,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/pre-departure-what-you-need-to-know\/","url_meta":{"origin":2307,"position":1},"title":"Pre-departure: what you need to know","author":"Kimberly Field","date":"November 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Bonjour everyone! Today\u2019s blog topic is about all the things you need to know before going away abroad. 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