Tag Archives: arriving in Stuttgart

How can you plan your move to another country professionally?

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This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Relocation

How can you plan your move to another country in order to be professionally successful over there?

Of course, first of all you need some information and Expat-Portals are perfect to gather information as well as experiences of different people. However, it takes long to find information appropriate to your case. You might have to scroll through experiences of expats, moving neither from your home country to another country nor did they move to the country you want to move to. Still, you will find people’s experiences of moving from your home country to other countries, moving from other origins to the country you want to move to or even people making the same move as you: from your home country to the country you want to move to (the ideal case for you).

And afterwards – what to do with this bulk of information and experience you gathered? There won’t be a case that fits you completely. There are always specialities to each of us, furthermore, in those portals you can find experiences only, there is no security that everything will happen to you the same way it happened to them. Rather, there is security that at least something is different. You want to live in a different part of the city, you have children, you have another budget or simply the circumstances in the town changed (because of time, supply & demand or whatsoever). Therefore, you need something more specialized, more tailor-made for your further steps like gohelpy and Xpatvisor. Expat-Portals are great to get a first or even a detailed overall impression of what to expect and what to bear in mind. However, when entering the actual planning of your move and planning your steps to your new home, do not rely on experiences of other but use the possibility to have a tailor-made path to walk along. You have special desires and demands which should be realized. The Xpatvisor does exactly this and hence adds a more personalized and specialized part to Expat-information portals.

 

Brexit is on the horizon already – first impacts are felt

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A recent case shows that Brexit has its influence on European as well as British citizens already. Uncertainty is immense and still growing among all citizens. A British had to feel this personally: Because of uncertainty a landlord decided to rent his flat to a person with lower income, however a European citizenship, lasting longer than the next 2 years. He valued the security of having a tenant for probably longer than the next year higher than the security of the higher income of the British citizen.

Uncertainty, especially concerning citizenships, work and residence permits is extremely high, not only on the side of the British citizens but among EU citizens working and living in Great Britain as well. “Will I be allowed to live here? Will I be posted to another country? How long will I be allowed to live here from now? What will happen?” All these questions are going around in many peoples’ heads. And of course not only those directly influenced by the Brexit, but they influence those indirectly affected as well. This group is huge: landlords, hotels, apartment-owners and many more are people being uncertain about the Brexit´s impact on their jobs as well.

Although, nothing is really decided yet on the Brexit conditions the consequences of it are growing and growing as uncertainty rises.

We have to wait and see and hope for the best, for both sides.

New Trend: Professional people sharing flats

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You are not a student anymore but you do feel like a student or miss your good old student times in shared flats? You are single but you do not want to live alone?
Then you should follow this new trend: professional people sharing flats! More and more of these types of shared flats are popping up in bigger cities.
The advantages? – Many!
You do not have to live alone by your own, however if you are professional you might not want to live together with students, having completely different daily routines, and of course a different standing towards tidiness and comfort.
Sharing a flat with other professionals offers you a family of like-minded people. You share a similar daily routine and most of the time you have similar standings concerning comfort, tidiness and house rules.
Professionals do have a higher level of comfort they want to live in, however they also have a bigger budget as they are working already. Students do not have such high-level expectations towards their rooms as their budget is only small and they are not working but studying…and partying (you know you were a student once as well). However, therefore professional sharing a flat with student could cause some trouble. This is the reason why the new trend of ‘professional shared flats’ is rising so fast. Multiple online portals included already the option to search for ‘professional shared flats’ as opposed to ‘student shared flats’ within the bigger cities of Germany such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and co.
This might be something for you? Try it out! Find your room in a shared flat and live together with like-minded.

How useful are opendays, career fairs and Co?

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In nearly every month and in every bigger city multiple career days, career fairs. open days at universities or trade fairs about different universities take place. How useful are those trade fairs and open days? Does it make sense to visit such events?
YES!
Of course you do not need to visit every career or study fair, and of course attending every University openday is not even down-to-earth, but to get an overview of todays possibilities, opendays and career fairs are the way to go.

Today there are so many different Bachelor and Master studies, most of them you do not even know now and cannot imagine that those studies exist. Fairs of the different Universities or study programmes provide a good overview of what is possible. Get inspired by those fairs! It might happen that you find a study programme meeting all your desires but is relatively unknown, wherefore you have not heard about yet.
Similarly, career fairs: You are done with you studies but not sure where to head to? Get inspired by the vast range of possible jobs. Make good contacts and expand your network at those events.
And once you found interesting study programmes or traineeships you can visit the opendays of the universities/study programmes and traineeships you are interested in. Most of the time these specific events provide more into-depth information and easier opportunities to network.

Therefore, take your chance and visit one or two or more of the many career, job and uni fairs in Germany to get inspired and kickstart your career!
We listed some of the upcoming events in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne and Co.

  • Berlin: Connecticum (25.04-27.04.2017), Studyworld 2017 (12./13.05.2017)
  • Hamburg: Talente kompakt (27.04.2017)
  • Stuttgart: Stuzubi (29.04.2017)
  • Köln: meet@th-koeln (03.05. & 04.05.2017)
  • Düsseldorf: Master and more / Bachelor and more (05.05. & 06.05.2017)
  • Frankfurt: Jobmesse Einstieg (21./22.04.2017)

Happy Birthday EU! – 60 years after the Treaties of Rome

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60 years ago the foundation for today’s EU was laid when Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany signed the Treaties of Rome.

60 years of development, successes, crises and backdrops, but most important of all: 60 years of peace in Europe and 60 years of growing together to one Union.
The EU’s development until today was never easy or without backdrops and problems: France didn’t want Great Britain to join, the Empty Chair Crisis and the non-completion of a European Constitution. However, the EU always found an answer, a solution to the problem and developed further, came back stronger.
The Common European Market was established, inner-EU border-controls abolished and the Euro invented.

And today? Where is Europe heading?
Of course there are problems and crises the EU has to face, maybe more challenging than ever before, or just different?
Migration from Northern Africa, terrorism, and still some outliers of the financial crisis are challenging, however the EU is strong enough to combat these challenges, if it stays together, if we stay together.
Anti-EU movements within some Nation-States, such as political organizations or Brexit as the ultimate are developments within the nations and among the people of Europe. Nevertheless, the reaction to Brexit as well as the recent outcomes of the election in the Netherlands show that the people still believe in the EU, and we should do so! The EU offers a lot: we can travel through the EU as we like, without a passport, for most of the countries we do not even have to change money. Without the EU every of our countries would be alone, would be a minor player (if so at all) at the world scene, between America, China and Russia.

Therefore, we should March For Europe, we should celebrate and we should thank what it brought already and what it offers us.

By Ann-Kristin Gross

Top Ten Fun Facts – Stuttgart

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This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series TOP TEN
  • having vineyards since 3 AD, Stuttgart is the only city in Germany with a municipal wine estate, which covers 15.5 hectares
  • City of science – Stuttgart has the highest density of scientific, academic and research organizations in Germany
  • Cradle of the automobile – housing two of the world’s most popular car firms Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, Stuttgart offers to automobile museums (of course Mercedes and Porsche) and the Käfer (second most sold car of the world) was developed here!
  • featuring many vineyards, parks and forests Stuttgart belongs to the greenest cities of Europe. Especially ‘The Green U’ a 8 km long ring made up of parks, offers many recreational areas
  • The Teddybear as we all know it today was invented and born in Stuttgart by Richard Steiff
  • Stuttgart’s Ballett ranks among the world’s best dance institutions and is highly renowned
  • The first TV tower of the world was build in Stuttgart and you can still visit it!
  • City of the Maultäschle – Maultäschle, a typical Swabian dish (and Stuttgart is the capital of the Swabian region) was invented for being allowed eating meat on Good Friday. Normally, you do not eat meat on Good Friday, however the Swabians invented Maultaschen as ‘God is not able to see the meat inside the dough’. So they could eat meat and god did not notice
  • one Europe’s largest christmas markets takes place in Stuttgart every year between the last Thursday of November and 23rd December. Dating back to approximately 1692 and comprising about 280 decorated stalls it attracts around 3 million visitors every year!
  • Keeping up with Munich: Stuttgart has it’s own Oktoberfest – they call it Wasen instead of Wiesn and celebrate it two times a year! A bit smaller than Munich’s Oktoberfest, however it attracts nearly as much visitors as its big brother and is at least as amusing as the Wiesn