Right now recent graduates have a choice: take a job in the United States that is "good for their career" with a stable job and good pay OR move abroad and take a position with inherent risk that won't be relevant for your career.
I remember when I graduated, my friend's dad said to me "I know someone who taught English who came back and can't find a job". That's the common perception; If you go abroad, you won't be able to get a job when you get back. You won't be able to find something and you will be stranded. People will look at you like you aren't serious about your career.
This couldn't be further from the truth...
This is a big reason why I started BrainGain. I personally believe that going abroad is BETTER for your career than staying in the states. It will open your world up to a wealth of opportunities that you simply never knew about. It enables you to adapt to a new way of living, think on your feet, and be independent. Most importantly, it also allows you to remove yourself from the people who you grew up around, which enables you to pursue YOUR interests, rather than what your friends and family have pressured you into thinking that you were interested in.
I get on calls every day and talk to people about co-working spaces, hackathons, impact investing, and many many more…most students have no idea that these fields even exist….I know I didn't when I came out of school. If I never traveled and moved to India I wouldn't have ever learned about these things.
Could I have learned about these things while living in the US? Absolutely. But the EXPOSURE to these fields while it was directly relevant in my life is what made it so powerful. I want to share that exposure with other people, and put them in environments where they can immerse themselves in a world that has always existed, but they never knew about.
Someone emailed me today and said:
"I have been looking forward to joining the entrepreneurial community out in San Francisco after I graduate (as a salesman or marketer for a small to midsize biotech company), but an opportunity to work abroad would be a life changing experience!Your program seems to be the best of both worlds, and I would be thrilled to get a chance to hear some more about it."
This statement, in a nutshell, is what we are working to do; give you the best of both worlds.
We are eliminating the choice. We are making it so that you don't have to choose between your career and travel - you can do both at the same time. You can have your cake and eat it too. Get career relevant experience in a foreign country and push your career to a new level that wouldn't be possible had you not traveled.
And the positions you are "giving up" in the states? They will always be there for you.
We often look at one year abroad as this enormous life altering decision, where we are leaving behind everything we have built up for ourselves over the last 20 some odd years...but thats not the case. In reality that will always be there for you. The same job that you could have gotten in the states will still be available one year later. Your friends, family, everything will stay exactly how it was...but you wont.
One year later you will come back from traveling and working abroad and it will seem as if the world has been flipped on it's head. You will look at life in an entirely new light, and where you want to take your life will forever have a new meaning. You will have opened up doors that will remain open for the rest of your life.
The choice is yours….