Preferably into the EU. I speak some Spanish and I’m set to graduate with an Associates this semester. Hoping to get CompTIA certs sometime soonish and would like to continue schooling to get a bachelor’s in Compsci. Most notable work experience is 2 years in an office setting making collection calls and processing payments. What resources are available to me? Who or what agency/department can I contact to get more information? What’s the pipeline look like?
I know I could look most of this up, but there’s a lot of information out there and some(a lot) of it I find somewhat confusing. Plus, I don’t really even know where to start.
Associates degrees are non-existent and not recognized in the EU, and most if not all countries require you to be a graduate to be eligible for hire, which would make a student visa the easiest route.
Luckily many countries offer tuition completely for free; though bachelor degrees are often taught in the native language. If your Spanish is solid, you could of course go to Spain, else with English you’d be somewhat restricted to Ireland and Malta (English is the second official language, but the primary for tuition).
Other than that, some universities have English taught bachelor degrees, so you’d have to research them individually. Finland is very English- and Tech-friendly, for starters.
I don’t think they offer free tuition to non-EU citizens
Nordic countries do
Germany does
While most German universities are tuition-free, foreign students will still have to prove they have the means to support themselves, which means a 5-figure sum for each year.
In Germany “not free” means something like 400$ per semester at the public universities, doesn’t matter the nationality.
There are countries that do, but you’ll still need to demonstrate that you have the financial means to support yourself without working or needing recourse to public services for the duration of your study, so there’s still a fairly significant financial barrier to entry for most individuals. If you have the money to put down for 3 years of rent, food, utilities, etc, while you complete a degree in Europe, I imagine you’re generally doing pretty okay for yourself in the US.
But to be fair, the tuition is quite cheap depending on what and where you study. For myself the tuition is about 50€ per month(I just assume that the tuition is the same for non EU citizens).
50 euro tuitions are heavily subsidised, usually the price is a lot higher without subsidies.
One potential avenue is getting a job teaching English in another country. I’ve known a few people who did that for a year or two after college and enjoyed the experience. I think the pay is not great, and you’re stuck in a classroom teaching a lot of the time, but it’s a relatively straightforward path out of the country and into a life somewhere else, and with a company involved to expedite the process because they want to make money from you working ASAP.
Getting your BS in CS can potentially help you as well, depending on the country you want to move to. Not an expert but when I was looking into this awhile back I found various countries will give preferential treatment based off things like education and skills. Being a college educated SWE or whatever can make you more appealing to immigration authorities.
Do you have ancestry from a country that makes immigration easier if you can prove it?
Get a working visa in AU’s or Canada, stretch it out and in the 5th year when the concentration camps and gas chambers are in full swing, there should be a refugee visa available.
Look up digital nomad visas. Get remote work here, then apply to relocate to EU country. Good luck with the timezone difference, tho.
Getting remote work with my current level of education and experience seems almost impossible. I’ve looked on Remotists.com and Indeed, all the ones I saw ask for a bachelor’s minimum or very high skill set that I simply don’t have yet. Do you have any recommendations on where to look for remote jobs I might qualify for?
You might be able to find one with state/federal government - but they might have rules about residing within the state you’re at. Or require you to come in occasionally. But they can be good places to get started in a career. www.governmentjobs.com or usajobs.gov Not sure about private.
A couple of months ago I had a recruiter from the Department of State hit me up on Linkedin about onsite technical support roles at their embassies. The location selection process sounded more like military deployment and really sounded like a lot more uncertainty than I’d want to put my family through but if I didn’t have kids I’d have absolutely pursued it just for the experience. They were hiring for a ton of open positions so those might still be open if you have an IT background
I recently lost my mostly-remote role to layoffs and struggled to even land an interview, and ended up accepting a fully in person role an hour’s drive away. Job market’s pretty tight right now.
From the analysis I heard on the economics podcast I listen to, people aren’t changing jobs much and employers aren’t listing new jobs much at this second. Employers are apparently trying to wait and see what the new administration has in store for them before trying to expand their teams
Getting a student visa is easy and an excellent way to both get valid credentials and a feel for the local culture.
As to where you should go depends on what you’re interested in, you’ll almost certainly be able to make a home wherever, so pick something that seems interesting and go (you can always use your mandated vacation days to explore the rest of EU).
For language, in almost all the major cities people will be able to speak English, although typically you’ll want to learn the local language sooner rather than later for social reasons.
If you know Spanish go Barcelona, beautiful city, vibrant in both culture and industry, and with values not too shockingly different to the US. For more info, either visit the Spanish consulate nearest you or look up their online presence.
If you want to keep to English, consider Ireland, they’ve also had a booming IT industry for all the giants needing a foot in the EU.
Mostly you can’t go wrong anywhere in the EU. Biggest culture shock would probably be the Nordics or Slavic countries, but not necessarily in a bad way.
All of them have tons of info about student visas at each university, the degrees are standardised throughout the EU and most universities are good, and typically outstanding in a couple areas.
For more info you just contact their international coordinator, or their closest consulate.Most countries also have dedicated Web pages that outline the process, steps, and how you move toward permanent residence and citizenship if you’d want that.
Moving is typically the hard part, but if you start as a student, you’ll have a lot prepared for you (student accommodations, stipends, social activities, part-time job offers, recruitment fairs, incubators, etc.)
I had to look up what a consulate was lol. There’s a Spanish one in the biggest city in my state, 6 hours from me but they don’t have a website, I’ll have to call (or check Spain’s embassy website if they have one). Ireland doesn’t look like it has any consulates in the US, and the embassy is in Ireland itself… most likely will have to call them as well. Thanks!
I second the student visa route. It doesn’t get you residency right away and is an expensive strategy, but it gets you out pretty quick. You also become more desirable since you have a higher education from a locally known institution. Currently doing this in New Zealand.
Job visa or student visa
Student visa is the most probable one I could get. The biggest issue is admissions, mainly because of language barriers. With Britain no longer in the EU, my next best bet is Spain because I already speak some Spanish, but I feel like it’s not enough to get accepted there.
Many universities in the EU have programs in English. I mean I personally believe that if you’re going to a foreign country you should learn the/a language spoken there, if only to not be frustrated by language barriers, but you don’t need to do that if your only goal is to get into university in a foreign country.
If money isn’t an issue or you could get financed somehow, a lot of European universities offer a pre-degree/pre-enrollment year to teach you their languages and prepare you for their entrance exam, you could get in this way
I did not know that was possibly a thing. I’ll check it out and see which ones offer that.
Netherlands and scandinavian countries have a lot of courses in english. And ireland of course. Also in germany slowly but steadily english courses are more offered. I would advise you to srudy in english because its hard to study in a foreign language even if you already speak it very good. However i also advise you to learn the local language to connect better to people and culture.
I think the more difficult question will be … which country. Each EU country has specific laws and procedures. Although you can travel freely this doesn’t mean you can settle wherever you want.
You could do your bachelor’s in the EU. In that case, I believe the easiest way is by searching for universities that offer studies in english. The university I work at offers a master’s in computer science in English but the bachelor’s is in German. Most international universities also have offices that can help you with organizing your stay and visa.
University fees for foreign students can be very high. For example, I think the fees at Edinburgh university for a foreign student are 3 times the cost for English students, and almost 9 times compared to Scottish students. I’m going from memory here so I could be off a bit.
Many countries in Europe have straight up free universities for everyone, but yeah that’s something to keep in mind.
Semi serious. Who said it is gay to marry your homies?
Not OP, where do I apply
Mexico actually is a great country to live. Cheap living expenses, and the food is just ridonculously good. There are always good jobs available for educated people with good English
Look up “working holiday visas” if you’re under 30. It’s a process to encourage people to get world experience while they’re young. I’m sure if you found somewhere you liked you could then try and get something more permanent.
As everyone else said, the most viable paths into a developed country are work and studying, so you’ll need to find one of those. You’ll later need to go through (as I have heard) grueling visa procedures, but before any of that you have to get a job or get into university in the country you wanna go to.
By the way this is complete conjecture on my side and I’m only putting it out there so someone who knows more about these things can confirm or deny it, but maybe it’d help if you knew the language of the country you’re trying to get into?
Student exchange programs - > job - > permanent residence is one of the easiest ways to migrate.
Use European Grants for foreign Students and be debt free when you finish. … Even that should set you in front of your peers in the materialistic USA. ( No fees for studying and cost of living in less fancy european cities is really low for students).
People focus on citizenship but you could just relocate in a EU country, stay as much as you can, then switch country: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy are more than ok, Croatia is growing.
The most important thing to focus on, to me, is what kind of work you can do
