Why you should work abroad.

After some discussions on Twitter, I decided to write down my thoughts about why I think it's a really good idea to try out to work abroad for some time during your career.

For me, it all started when I was accepted for the Digital Media program at Hyper Island in 2006. A school that is known for its widespread internship program where you are doing your internship mostly abroad. I was happy about this and started to plan where I wanted to go already before I even started to study.

I could go wherever I wanted in the world, but I ended up in rainy (Naaah, that is mostly a myth) London, UK. Why?

The thing that was my priority was to go to a country and a city where the main language was English so I started doing some research on good agencies in three different countries; Australia, USA and UK. Later during my education, I had interviews with agencies in all those countries. I wanted to get more fluent in English "for free" by choosing an English-speaking country and that was my main priority.

But Jimmie, you are studying design and tech at a high-end school, shouldn't the priority be to focus on education?

No, I don't think so. For me this was a more life-changing event than just the education, I would have the opportunity to move somewhere in the world to live in another country and another city. To meet new people learn more about other cultures and have an adventure.

My idea was that where I go I will find a good agency to do my internship at and that part would solve itself and I wanted to focus more on the aspects of my work rather than the work itself. This would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime change in my life so I would like to make it good.

I ended up in a small digital agency in central London called Delete Limited where I meet a bunch of really good people and learned a lot. And outside work, I made friends for life, many of the people I met in London were Swedish people (When I lived there actually 300000 Swedish people were living there) that I keep in touch with today and we meet a few times a year for different activities.

So to conclude this a bit and list a few things that I think are worth thinking about when considering moving abroad.

• Learning or improving another language

• Meet new friends

• Learn other cultures

• Get work experience from another country

• Learn more about your responsibilities and choices in life.

I think there is so many things that you would gain from taking the change and go abroad that will help you with your life in the future. I think it is worth leaving the safe life you have at home to go on an adventure.