(upbeat music)
- Hi guys. - Good morning.
My name is Mills. - And my name is George.
- And we live in Budapest, Hungary.
We've been here since August of this year,
and we are excited to take you in the day of our life
of us living here in Budapest.
We got our ITA certificate online,
we did the 11 week program, I got mine,
I would say maybe like a year and a half ago,
it's been a while.
- And I got mine by the end of February.
- And it is amazing.
It's like I said, 11 weeks,
you kind of go at your own pace, the teachers are awesome.
And once you get your certification,
you can work through your advisor,
helping you find where you wanna teach
and how to get positioned in the country
that you wanna teach at.
- Personally I worked in the service industry
for such a long time,
and I do not regret moving abroad
and teaching English, it's so fulfilling,
and I wanna thank her because she actually inspired me
to become a teacher.
- Yeah, so we are going to talk about a bit more.
I got cut off, but we are going to talk
about a bit more about how we got our positions
here in Budapest, and before we go to work,
we're going to give you a little apartment tour.
So we found our positions through CETP
that stands for Central European Teaching Program,
and they are super, super amazing.
They helped us out so much,
and they are just really, really great program,
with the program, comes with visa help,
which is amazing, not only finding your teaching position,
but they do help you with housing,
and it's taken care of by the school,
including the utilities,
and they're also there for any other kind of support
or help that you need when you're in the United States,
and then when you make your transition to Hungary,
and they even organize an orientation
before you start teaching for anybody
that is new in the program.
- With that being said, though, it comes with a fee.
The fee varies, depending if you're in Budapest
or in the outskirts of Budapest,
like in the small towns of --
So this fee you have to pay covers visa fees,
and it helps keep the program afloat here in Hungary.
- And -- - And also
with your placement.
- Also placement here in Hungary,
also bring three to six months worth of emergency savings
due to the process of becoming a citizen of,
or residents of Hungary.
It can take a while,
and if you're dealing with the governmental bureaucracy,
you know, it's kind of slow paced.
- And especially with COVID, it is taking a bit longer too.
And if you ever want to,
if you enjoy the program your first year here,
and you want to, let's just say renew or whatever,
you do pay a fraction of the cost
that you pay the first time that you joined.
So that's really nice to know too.
So yeah.
- All right, onto our apartment tour.
- Here are doing the apartment.
This is our little hallway right here,
to our left is our kitchen,
I really love the backsplash, it's my favorite.
This is a typical size refrigerator
that you could possibly have in the program.
And we even have a freezer,
which is not, everybody doesn't have that.
We also have another little hallway with a closet,
we have a lot of closet and storage space.
Here's our bathroom,
right here is our washing machine,
it's typical to have your washing machine
either in your kitchen or your bathroom,
and we also have a shower right here,
and not everyone has a nice shower like this,
so we're really thankful for that.
On to our bedroom, we do have a bedroom and this is it.
It's not all that big,
but it's enough space for what we need.
And then onto here, we have our,
and then one of my favorite parts of the apartment here
is our balcony.
We have a very, very spacious balcony,
and we also live in the center of the city, which is nice.
So we get this great view from our apartment.
We are about a 10 minute walk for the Danube, Danube,
however you wanna say it.
Oh, we are on our commute now,
we are walking to a tram,
and then we take a train to our school.
This week has been a little different
compared to other weeks we've been here.
We've had a bit of a COVID outbreak
in two grades with one of them being online for the week.
So yeah, and then we have another grade, our seventh grade,
who is not gonna be doing classes today
because they're doing a project work for their class.
So, yeah.
All right, so we are at school now,
as you could see from the last post,
I took a picture of our desks.
Now we do not have our own classrooms.
We actually go to each of the classrooms
that for the grades that we teach,
and the school that we teach at
teaches grades first through seventh.
I teach third, fourth, and then advanced
fifth through seventh, and George.
- I teach first, second, fifth through seventh beginners.
We both teach 25 classes a week.
- Yeah, so that is our schedule.
And I did mention before, like about the COVID outbreak,
fifth grade is out because of that,
but it was just two classes.
The rest of the grades are still in school
and we are still teaching in-person for those grades
except for fifth grade.
Also so our positions are really unique compared to
a lot of the other positions that CETP finds for you.
Typically your position that CETP people find
is an English conversationalist type teaching job,
but here at the school that we teach at,
we are actually the head English teachers,
so we literally teach everything from speaking, listening,
reading, to even grammar and other things like that.
So this is a typical classroom here at the school
that we teach.
So today we found out we only teach two classes today.
So this is a very weird day,
because usually we teach about five classes.
All right, guys,
I am going to put an ask me anything box right here,
so that you guys can send us any questions
that you may have about us, our teaching position,
CETP, anything that comes to mind.
- All right, so what we'd love
and enjoy is a quality of life.
- And what we do not enjoy all that much
is it's very go with the flow here,
and it's not as structured like we're used to
in the United States.
So that's something we really are trying to get used to.
- Okay, question here regarding tattoos.
My school is flexible.
Piercings are very flexible.
- Yeah I have a piercing. - It just
- As well. - depends on your school.
Obviously during the interview, ask that question,
let them know.
Regarding COVID you are required to wear a mask
in the hospitals or doctor's offices,
public transportation, other than that,
it's pretty laid back,
at our school, we are not required to wear a mask,
but again, that changes with every school.
- So this is a great question,
we're gonna answer this in two slides,
but your living costs and your salary,
that really depends on where you're living in the country
and how much general work experience you have.
- So regarding the last slide,
if you're a student that is looking
to pay off student loans, while living in Hungary,
Hungary may not be a viable option,
unless you are a very frugal person due to the salary
that's based on experience and where you live.
- So we work about 25 hours a week,
but depending on where you work
and where you are in Hungary,
you could work anywhere between 20 to 25 hours.
- Here in Budapest,
we have not experienced any language barriers,
but if you are in a smaller town in Hungary,
you will experience that.
I suggest, we suggest that you learn how to speak
basic Hungarian to help you communicate with others.
- So we are actually students, I'm in my master's program,
George is getting another bachelor's degree.
So in our free time, we're doing homework,
and we have a ton of time traveling around Europe.
- Great question.
Mills and I do not have a co-teacher,
we are both the English teachers,
but depending on the school and where you are in Hungary,
you will probably have a co-teacher in English.
Great question here,
Hungary Budapest was very affordable,
CETP program had great reviews,
we've never been to this side of the world
and we wanted to explore it together.
- So if you're going through CETP to find your position,
you have to be a native speaker from the US, UK, Canada,
or from an EU member country.
So we met over two years ago in Oxford, Mississippi.
I was in my last semester of college,
Hotty, toddy, go, Ole' miss,
and George moved there for work,
and I had always known that I wanted to move --
- So adding more to the last or previous slide,
Mills always knew that she wanted to travel
and teach English abroad,
and like I said earlier in the day,
she inspired me to become a teacher,
we both wanted to get away from the race
that's back in the US,
we were seeking a better work-life balance,
and we figured that Budapest, Hungary and the CETP program
offered us the best opportunity to begin this journey.
And that is the reason as to why we are here in Budapest.
- So CETP is the most popular placement program
for finding jobs in Hungary.
They placed well over 100 teachers here,
and you can definitely find more information
through the job manual that ITA gives you about CET.
- So it's good evening over here,
so for dinner, we usually cook during the week.
I forgot to pull the chicken our from the freezer,
let it defrost, so we came to --
- Our favorite restaurant,
that's just a couple of blocks away from our apartment.
It's a Vietnamese restaurant,
and yeah, it's pretty affordable,
and we love it here so much.
- It's delicious, and the hospitality is phenomenal.
They treat us like family.
- So we got a really good question
that was messaged to us about health insurance,
and how health insurance works here is that
you do get it when you come over and you teach,
it's taken out of your paycheck.
And it's a certain percentage that is obviously
since the government,
and it allows you to use all the government services
that they provide here in Hungary.
All right, guys, we are here at St. Stephen's Basilica,
and we are enjoying our nightly stroll
with some mulled wine because Christmas season is upon us,
here in Hungary,
and they're preparing to do the Christmas markets
and everything, and we're super, super excited,
but we wanted to say a couple last things
before we signed off.
(bells tolling) - Hello,
just so you know,
this opportunity to teach with CETP in Hungary
applies to everybody.
If you have a bachelor's degree,
and you have a TOEFL certificate, you know,
the age requirements --
- There is none. - There is none.
So if you're out there and you feel stuck,
not fulfilled, challenge you,
take advantage of the opportunity.
The world is your oyster,
and it will only make you a better person,
and there's so much, there's so much to explore.
You are just not here to teach English.
You're also here to be part of a community,
and you're making an impact in your students' lives.
So yeah, for anyone out there, who's feeling stuck.
- Go out there and travel, learn more about yourself,
impact other's lives, and yeah,
that's what we're gonna say.
I'm going to put my Instagram over somewhere around here.
Not George's face but somewhere around here,
and George maybe, yeah, over there.
- We'll put it up here,
all right? - And yeah, so yeah.
Thanks for watching our takeover, and yeah.
(speaking in Hungarian)
(upbeat music)