Our exchange program at Babbel is a chance for Babbelonians to experience enhanced learning and increase collaborations and of course a chance to travel between our two locations in NYC and Berlin.
Meet this year’s summer applicants Piotr, Christoph, and Thomas, and learn more about their experiences and fulfill your curiosity about the program.
Piotr Wojsznis, Senior Content Marketing and Social Media Manager
How long have you been working at Babbel?
4 years
Why did you apply for the exchange program at Babbel?
I applied for the program because more than half of my team is located in NYC – plus I used to run a project in close collaboration with one of the teams there.
What did you like the most about your experience during this program?
The exchange program is a monthly relocation, during which I had a different home, bed, route to the office, plans for evenings, etc. Being able to live and work in a completely new environment was very refreshing and opening to me. Rather scared of bold moves in my life, I learnt how to be more courageous owing to the entire experience.
What do you recommend to anyone taking on a new learning experience?
To stretch every day as much as possible by filling it out with new places to visit and things to do. From museums and theaters to beaches and trips to the outskirts, NYC offers so much that it is a waste of time to go to bed early, or go to bed in general 🙂
Christoph Weigt, Director of Paid Digital Marketing
How long have you been working at Babbel?
7.5 years
Why did you apply for the exchange program at Babbel?
Because I wanted to better understand the ways of working and collaborating within the US team, as they have a similar setup than ours and I wanted to see what we can learn from each other when it comes to marketing initiatives and collaborations.
What did you like the most about your experience during this program?
Professionally it was really nice to work in the same time zone and office as our US colleagues as we rarely see each other in person and have mainly high level exchanges.
Personally it was a great experience for my family and I, as my wife and our 2 year old daughter were with me for the whole month. Living in a completely new environment in a different culture and country was as exciting as challenging at the same time and an experience I’ll never forget.
What do you recommend to anyone taking on a new learning experience?
Maximize your time as much as possible without stressing too much about plans you made upfront. Almost every day turned out differently than planned for me and that was great.
Thomas Devlin, Editorial Lead
How long have you been working at Babbel?
6 years
Why did you apply for the exchange program at Babbel?
I applied to the Babbel exchange program because my team works very closely with our counterparts in Berlin. I’ve had the opportunity to visit for a week at a time in the past, but I wanted the chance to spend longer in Berlin to get to know my colleagues and figure out where we could more closely collaborate.
What did you like the most about your experience during this program?
A highlight of the exchange program was spending time with other teams across the Babbel office. It’s so much bigger than the team in New York, and only seeing the names over Slack doesn’t really convey much. Being able to connect with Babbel employees that work in fields beyond marketing, which is 99% of who I tend to see day-to-day.
Beyond the workplace, the chance to live in a different country for a month was the best benefit I’ve ever gotten at Babbel. New York is far from monolingual, of course, but being in an incredibly multilingual city like Berlin is still a very novel experience. Between working days, I explored a huge number of places, from the Jewish Museum to the Gardens of the World, and it really gave me a new perspective on things.
What do you recommend to anyone taking on a new learning experience?
One thing I try to do whenever embarking on a new learning experience is to throw myself into the subject as much as possible. When that comes to a language, that doesn’t need to be full immersion — though it can be if that option is open to you! — but for me it means doing lessons, watching movies with subtitles and more. Even things that can seem peripheral to the language, like reading books in English that are set in the countries that speak the language, can be helpful in their own way.