Write Your Story Abroad

This is the final episode of a 3-part series for international students. Previously, we invited experts to chat with us about student visas in Canada and the United States. Today, we sit down with Megan, who we met at a pilates event in Singapore. She is from Indonesia and moved to the US in 2018 to pursue an international education. Originally Megan attended Foothill College in Mountain View and later transferred to USC during COVID. If you've been curious about daily life for an international student in California, check out some of her hilarious stories from a check-cashing scam to learning to drive, the gap between American move-out norms (right after graduation) and Indonesian ones (marriage and kids), and why she tells incoming international students to leave their comfort zone instead of clustering with people from home.

The US student visa interview lasts under two minutes. According to Inesa, a US visa consultant who has prepared many F-1 and J-1 applicants, consular officers make their decision in that window, and most of it doesn't come down to your documents. The interview is not to recheck your papers. It's to check you.This is Part II of a 3-part series for international students. Last week, Christian Akwara walked through Canadian study permits. This week, Inesa breaks down what consular officers may ask, the difference between F-1 and J-1 visas, why one-word answers are the most common cause of denials, and her three-sentence formula for answering interview questions in a way that demonstrates ties to your home country without sounding rehearsed.Next week, Megan chats with us about her experiences studying abroad in California and compares them to growing up in Indonesia.

Headlines about international student visas have been rough lately. Canada tightened its study permit cap while the US has expanded consular vetting. We still see a ton of interest from students looking to study abroad, however. And we think you should still go!Studying abroad is a life-changing opportunity, and even though it's harder now, it's absolutely still possible.This is Part I of a 3-part series for international students.Today we're joined by Christian Akwara, a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant, as he walks through proof of funds, biometrics, the application mistakes that consistently get permits returned, why you should submit at least three months before your program starts, and how to pick a Designated Learning Institution that qualifies for the Post-Graduation Work Permit.Part II next week covers the US F-1/J-1 consular interview with Inesa.We'll close out this series with Part III, where we chat with Megan, a friend of ours we met in Singapore. She talks all about international student life in the US coming from Indonesia.

According to Spain's Instituto Nacional de Estadística, nearly one in five people living in Spain was born in another country. Spain remains one of the most asked-about countries by our audience, so this is Part II of a two-part series. In last week's episode, Raquel of Salas Immigration walked us through the full visa landscape if you're looking to relocate to Spain: NLV, DNV, Golden Visa, etc, and common mistakes that get visa applications rejected. This week we're back with Marta to hone in on 1 particular route that so many of you have asked about...the Digital Nomad Visa! Marta breaks down the minimum income requirement, applying from inside Spain versus from a US consulate, and a laundry list of other helpful tips for those of you looking to work remotely across the Atlantic.

According to Spain's Instituto Nacional de Estadística, nearly one in five people living in Spain was born in another country. Spain remains one of the most asked-about countries by our audience, so this is Part I of a two-part series. I sit down with Raquel and Marta of Salas Immigration, registered Spanish immigration attorneys, to break down the main visa routes into Spain: what each one requires, what each one costs, and the mistakes that get applications rejected before they're reviewed. We cover the Non-Lucrative Visa's income floor and its total ban on employment, the documentation timeline you should budget at least two months for, and why the translator you pick matters more than you'd think. Next week in Part II we'll hone in on the Digital Nomad Visa.

I sit down with Qi Zhai-McCartney, founder of Seeing Qi Therapy and Coaching in Singapore, to answer burning questions from our audience around expat life, mental health, career pivots, and maternal health abroad.I'm sure many of these topics will resonate with those of you already abroad as Qi takes us deep on the idea of the "adaptation tax," or the energy it costs to code-switch between cultures every day. We also talked about the patterns she sees across expat clients: burnout that high-achievers dismiss as weakness and the "invisible labor" that falls on expat mothers.Her advice for the first 90 days in a new location: build a personal "board of directors." Same-sex friends to vent to, couple friends to go out with, playdate friends for emergencies. No single person, especially a spouse, can fill every role, least of all when you're living 3000 kilometers away from your parents and friends.

Arlindo and Paula are a Portuguese couple who moved to Singapore a decade ago. We met them our very first week after arriving in a co-living in Geylang.We chat about adjusting from a culture where the entire month of August shuts down to one where you're expected to answer emails on vacation. About their spice tolerance changing so much that patatas bravas back in Portugal taste bland now. About buying pieces of roast pig from a Chinatown wet market basement because they hadn't planned dinner.They also shared what visiting home looks like after ten years. Flights to Portugal are 14 hours. Paula spends most visits cooking for their grown kids instead of sightseeing. We loved this episode and this chat because we always hear about people leaving, but much less about people staying long-term. This is what a 10 year journey abroad looks like.

We've lived in South Korea, France, Spain, and Singapore. In this episode we tell our full story and how living abroad changed who we are.We chat about the highs, like the moment a foreign language clicks and you realize you can function in it. And the lows, like being homesick in a country where you don't have a support system, or dealing with a health emergency far from home.One of the ideas we talk about all the time is the "triangle to circle" metaphor. When you move between cultures, you stop fitting neatly into any one of them. You become something new. Your identity isn't the country you came from or the country you moved to, but rather a melting pot of many different people, foods, songs, and languages.We also get into the practical side: how to research a city before committing and how to filter through the noise when every country looks like a good option from the outside.