Well, for me moving abroad was a massive eye opener, especially since I started by living in The Netherlands and when it comes to the way they do things the Dutch are very different even though they’re generally pretty relaxed (though they might not look so since they normally only real open up to people who they know well).
I went in with all those “bad” habits and found out that, no, those were not in fact “the way people do things”, they were just the way people tended to do things in my own country.
It probably helped that I moved driven by wanting to “learn different perspectives and ways of doing things” rather than for economic reasons (back in the 90s somebody with an Engineering degree would be just fine in Portugal and be under no economic pressure to emigrate). These were the days when you could be hired from abroad even as a junior software developer and the company would pay your moving and settling costs, so you didn’t actually need money to move, just willpower and guts.
IMHO, everybody should live abroad for long enough to feel that you really live there (so at least a year or two), if only for the perspective and broader life experience it brings.
Well, for me moving abroad was a massive eye opener, especially since I started by living in The Netherlands and when it comes to the way they do things the Dutch are very different even though they’re generally pretty relaxed (though they might not look so since they normally only real open up to people who they know well).
I went in with all those “bad” habits and found out that, no, those were not in fact “the way people do things”, they were just the way people tended to do things in my own country.
It probably helped that I moved driven by wanting to “learn different perspectives and ways of doing things” rather than for economic reasons (back in the 90s somebody with an Engineering degree would be just fine in Portugal and be under no economic pressure to emigrate). These were the days when you could be hired from abroad even as a junior software developer and the company would pay your moving and settling costs, so you didn’t actually need money to move, just willpower and guts.
IMHO, everybody should live abroad for long enough to feel that you really live there (so at least a year or two), if only for the perspective and broader life experience it brings.