Life / How many Americans live in Poland? [13]


Pretty much a waste of time.

Work / Average IT salary in Poland [60]

@lucrib

You're going to have to do your own math, based on the following.

Gross Salary = ( Cost_of_living + (relocation_costs/12) + recreation_costs + savings_allowance) * 1.5

Basic cost of living for a foreign, mid-career couple is about 5000 PLN, housing, utilities, public transportation, food, household supplies, clothing, and sundry expenses. Modest, non-smoking, non-drinking, no car.

Relocation costs include total cost of travel to and from Poland, together with all visa and residency permit fees. Divide by 12 to get a monthly amount.

Recreation fees vary wildly, depending how much you travel and how expensive your hobbies are.

Savings allowance is the big problem, and the deal killer for foreigners interested in working in Poland. A mid-career IT professional should be putting aside at least $1000 a month. and can easily do this in a richer country. But this is a problem in Poland, where the low wages and the relatively high cost of living conspire to make serious saving rather difficult.

The 1.5 is the gross/net ratio (taxes).

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

Yes, cheeses with robust flavors and aromas are indeed produced in the States. The variety and quality of artisan cheeses available would make a Frenchman's head spin.

Of course, as in any other country, these cheeses are consumed mainly by foodies who make the effort to seek them out. Even here in the cheesemaking state of Vermont, you won't find much of a selection in regular supermarkets. You have to go to a specialist cheese shop, or to the producer themselves. Some of the best sell only on their premises by appointment only. Fortunately, it's just a short walk for me to the nearest cheese shop, which does have a rather decent selection, and they can order just about any local cheese I want with adequate notice.

Work / What qualifications are required to teach English in Poland? Completed 2 week TEFL course [53]

I've always found it strange that people would want to learn a language from someone who has never bothered to learn another language themself.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

I know. Stinking Bishop is on the to-do list next time I visit the UK.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

Craft beers started taking off before I left, in large part due to Poles returning from the UK and the States, and even to Brits and Americans coming to Poland. I remember meeting a young American who moved to Poland about 20 years ago and was in the process of resurrecting one of the old local breweries. He's doing quite well now: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browar_Namys%C5%82%C3%B3w

As you said, local tastes have to be reschooled. Same as American tastes had to be retrained in the 1970s when the only beers available were commercial crap. The charge was led by troops returning from being stationed in Germany, who returned home and found that there were no decent beers available.

As for cheese, even a lot of my cooworkers here in Vermont are unaware that Vermont is one of the bright stars on the cheese map. The selection of mouthwatering cheeses here is simply astounding. A lot of the craft producers went to Europe to learn the best methods for making traditional cheeses. Some are even making rather respectable washed-rind cheeses, which take an extraordinary level of skill.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

Indeed. Just like the best Danish cheeses and beers are never exported.

When I lived in Poland, I used to visit Cieszyn on the Czech border frequently, and we would stock up on great Czech cheeses that were simply sublime. There are some signs that an artisan cheese industry is in its infancy in Poland, though, just like with craft beers. I've tried some rather decent artisan cheeses at fairs in Poland. And look around for the cheese called Bursztyn. It's the only commercial cheese in Poland that is worth buying. I was quite impressed. I'm sorry that I never got a chance to try the other cheese made by that producer, Safir and Rubin.

As for now, Poland is still a black hole on the European cheese scene. Most Poles strongly dislike good cheese. They have been conditioned to actually prefer bad bland cheese. The image of cheese in their mind is what they see in the store, and anything that deviates from that is "weird". They don't even like the idea of good cheese, and are extremely hesitant event to try it. I took one of my Polish students, a relatively adventurous foodie, on vacation to Bornholm once, and getting him to try the best Danish cheeses was like pulling teeth. He did fall in love with them once he tried them, though. So artisan cheese makers in Poland have a tough row to hoe in terms of overcoming consumer resistance.

It's like with kiełbasa, bread or beer in Poland. They can be excellent, but the commercial stuff is primarily cheap commercial cr@p. It takes some looking to find the good stuff, but it's worth it. Even in a city as large as Wrocław, finding good bread was a challenge. There is only one small bakery that makes great bread, but it is worth making the trek across town for.

Work / Job prospects in Poland for Polish-American [14]

Europe needs more English teachers like it needs more cockroaches. The problem with IT engineering is that you will always have to compete with Indians, who are happy to work for peanuts, and thus drive wages down.

Work / Job prospects in Poland for Polish-American [14]

I would recommend more lucrative fields like petroleum, geological or biomedical engineering. Your lifetime earnings and savings potential would be significantly higher, job prospects are much better, and, with the first two, there is the possibility of working in the field at obscenely high wages. Think Alaska, the Gulf or oil platforms. Biomedical is taking off, as well, and the only thing holding it back is a shortage of qualified engineers. The advantage here is that it will be easier for you to get patents on your work that have a good chance of paying off in the future. Most of my current income is derived from processes that I patented as a doctoral student.

The strategy for finding a well-paid job as an engineer in Poland is to work for a good American or international engineering company until you qualify to be transferred to oversee their projects in Poland at Western wages. That will take a few years, but the fact that you speak Polish will help a lot, so keep developing your Polish.

Best of luck with your studies! And don't forget that the whole point of your studies is to acculturate yourself to your future professional community and network, network and network from day one. You're not there merely to learn "about" engineering. You're there to become an engineer.

Work / Information about jobs for Indian students in Poland [286]

First of all, those Forbes lists are total garbage. They were some project that was started by some not-very-bright intern that used a not-very-sophisticated bot to scour the internet for university websites and used a not-very- well-thought-out algorithm to parse the sites and rank them. So it's basically a case of garbage in, garbage in the middle, and garbage out. I don't know why Forbes has them on their site. I guess as click bait.

No, the University of Warsaw is not ranked anywhere near the top for MBA programs. The courses taught in Polish are not bad, but those taught in English are of very low quality. The degrees they offer are not worth much on the international job market, not in Poland, not in Germany and not in Canada.

I don't understand what you mean that you cannot get an MBA in Canada because of your age. Serious schools prefer mature candidates, especially for MBA programs.

Don't come to Poland on the assumption that you will be able to find a part-time job. It's a far safer assumption that you won't, so make your plans on the assumption that you will not be able to earn a single penny during your stay in Poland. If your consultant is telling you that jobs for foreign students are easy to find, they are lying. Very few foreign students do. Even with your experience, it is going to be a challenge.

Sorry, but higher education in Poland for non-Polish speakers is sort of a scam that takes advantage of desperate, gullible and naive students from poor countries such as yourself. And it's a poor investment that practically never pays off.

And those "consultancies" are a scam, too. A real school recruiter would never take money from prospective students. If anyone makes you pay to find a place to study or work, they are certainly scamming you. Run away and don't believe anything they say, because they will say anything to get your money, which is the only thing they care about.

Do your own research by using your network of real-world friends and colleagues, especially those who have studied in Canada. And contact universities there yourself, without the help of a "consultant" or "agent". That is the only way to get useful information. Use the internet only to get contact information and ignore any hype.

And also look into good MBA programs in India. An MBA from a good IIM is worth a lot more than an MBA from an English-language program at even the best university in Poland.

If you want a job in Germany, then apply for a job in Germany. Going to Poland isn't going to make that any easier. Again, rely on your network of real-world contacts, because the best jobs are advertised solely by word of mouth, face to face, friend to friend. Recruiters and job websites get only the table scraps, so don't waste your time on them.

Do learn to effectively network in the real world. Learning how to do that properly will help you more than a thousand lousy MBAs from a lousy English-language program in Poland.

Food / Where to buy fruit wood in Poland for use in a smoker [4]

Or a fruit farm. The area to the southwest of Warsaw is the main fruit growing area in the country. That is. the area around Skierniewice and Rawa Maz.

Work / I need help to calculate the tax in Krakow, Poland [17]

More like 32%. And never call anyone "dear" or "friend". No one likes that.

Work / Information about jobs for Indian students in Poland [286]

Indeed. Poland is not the place to come if you need to earn enough money to save or to send home.

It's also not the place to come if you want a good education, but don't speak fluent Polish.

Work / Information about jobs for Indian students in Poland [286]

@Bipin S Kumar

If your goal is to immigrate to Canada, then save up and do your MBA in Canada. An MBA from a good school in Canada would be immeasurably more valuable than an MBA from an English-language course in Poland, which is not going to open many doors for you, in Canada, in Poland or anywhere.

Or, alternatively, get an MBA from a good IIM.

English-language courses in Poland are generally of poor quality and little value on the job market, and are thus a poor investment. They are a bit of a scam, actually. Probably a total waste of time and money.

If you are looking for part-time work with the goal of sending money home, that is unrealistic. Wages in Poland are too low to make that possible, and the cost of living is rather high in relation to wages, so you might well have trouble covering your own living expenses, or might not find a job at all.

Sorry, but you have to do your research, and come up with a more realistic plan. Talk it over with people in your network who work or have worked in Canada.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

@zagadka314

It's more a matter of ignorance. The best cheeses produced in the US are not exported. And definitely not to the EU, which has almost a blanket ban on the import of dairy products of any kind. Dairy over-production has long been a severe problem that causes significant friction between the countries of the EU as it is. So Europeans are generally not aware that high-quality cheeses are produced in the US.

Love / Urgent Relationship help - wife wants to stay in Poland [118]


Get your vision checked, because I wrote nothing of the sort. I wrote that he should cut off all contact UNTIL HE TALKS IT OVER CAREFULLY WITH HIS LAWYER and gets specific advice how to proceed. Nothing coldhearted in breaking off contact for a short time like this.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]


I had heard that they were good, too, but I wasn't expecting them to be THIS good. So much variety, too. Try local artisan cheeses form your part of the country. I think you might be surprised, too, to find that great cheeses are made in your own neck of the woods. They're worth the price.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]


I'm pretty amazed by the local cheeses here in Vermont, too. Light years ahead of anything you could find in Poland, and on par with the best European cheeses.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]


It's like British people missing so-called "baked beans", which are considered poverty food in the States. People develop strange affinities for the foods of their childhood, even if they are of abysmally low quality.

For example, when I was in Poland, I had a friend from Newcastle who went back home for Christmas and brought back canned salmon, brownie mix, and, I kid you not, M&S Yorkshire pudding mix. I didn't even know there was such a thing like Yorkshire pudding mix. What need could it possibly fill? Like it's that hard to make from scratch. Any child could do that. Rocket science it is not. When I pointed that out to him, he said that no, the M&S mix is much better. Go figure. And brownies from a mix? How much more gauche can you get?

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Annitta

That cuts off a lot of the potential market. Sure, you can find people that made it without Polish, but for every one of them there a hundred or more who tried and failed. I would have had great difficulty marketing myself if I didn't speak Polish. It let me operate on a totally different plane of existence. Not to mention that my social and cultural life was immeasurably more fulfilling. If you were only going for a year or two, I would say forget about it. But as it seems you intend to relocate to Poland permanently, then learning Polish should be a high priority for him.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Annitta

Unfortunately, it's the kind of knowledge that is hard to sell on the Polish job market unless he speaks Polish and has developed a solid network of local real-world contacts. He could try a consulting firm like Mckinsey or the like to tide him over and get his foot in the door. But sooner rather than later, he's going to have to learn Polish and get out there and network his butt off to find a niche that requires his expertise. It ain't gonna be easy, especially if he is not eager to seriously hit the books and learn Polish to a high level.

Food / Making American cheeses (Polish and EU ones are terrible!) [100]

@delphiandomine

As with beer and wine, there are a lot of artisan cheeses here in the States that can rival the best of their European counterparts. As you know, Poland is not a cheese country. Polish cheese are like bland, versions of American commercial cheeses, and are never matured. I found only one Polish cheese worthy of distinction: Bursztyn. But that's not the kind of cheese the OP is looking for.

I found masa in one of the international food shops in Wrocław, Kuchnie Światów, I think. They have branches in Warsaw, too, so check them out. As for other Mexican products, the thing I found hardest to deal with was the lack of a good range of dried chiles like anchos, guajillos and secos, and fresh chiles like Hatches. And if you want to make a good mole or killer tamales, you're going to have to have someone from back home send you the ingredients that you can't find in Poland. Same with pozole. And I ended up growing my own cilantro, and forget about sweet onions. Used to live in San Diego, and spent a lot of time in Baja, Sonora and Chihuahua, and also other points further south. I don't like Tex-Mex quite as much.

As for shortening, I'm a northern boy, so we never used it. We preferred butter for things like cakes, biscuits and cornbread, instead, and farm lard for pie dough. We had a can of Crisco in the house, but never used it. It was probably bought before I was born, and is still probably there under the sink 57 years later. But Yankee cornbread is rich, yellow and moist and very sweet, with lots of eggs and cream and honey. I remember my first encounter with southern cornbread. It was a shock. Never could stomach it.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Atch

Swimming and sharpshooting and marksmanship were my sports. I never got beyond the stickman and broccoli tree stage in art, though. Later, during graduate school, I discovered that I had a talent for cartography, and my maps were highly praised by the professor. So draw I could, and well, as long as it was maps. Music was the organ, and I got pretty good at it, good enough to play in church.

@ the OP

The important thing is to give your kids exposure to a wide variety of different activities to discover latent strengths and weaknesses, with a strong basis in reading literature and doing math and science well above grade level. We live in a technocracy where math means money, and those that can't do math end up washing the socks and underwear and cleaning the toilets of those who can.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Atch

I loved math and science from the cradle. My dad was a nuclear engineer, and he kept us years ahead of our classmates. So that we would be on the first spaceships off to Mars when the Earth was going up in flames (I kid you not). I started university two years early and tested out of all the introductory math and science classes, which put me three years ahead. The only thing my parents did wrong is that they did not teach us Polish. I had to learn that all on my own as an adult.

Oh, and if you think I'm one-sided, I also majored in classical languages and German.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]


I think the school day should be expanded by three hours, the school week by one day, and the school year by two months, to be devoted to math and science.

And that schoolchildren should wear color coded uniforms based on their level of achievement in math and science.

Our jails would be empty in no time, and no one would be on the dole.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Annitta

If your combined assets minus debts are more than 1 million Euro and are properly invested, then your retirement savings goals have been meet if you intend to retire in Poland. Your income alone will be enough to ensure you and your family a comfortable existence in Poland until then, and even to make a significant contribution to the kids college funds. If, somehow, your husband is able to find gainful employment, so much the better.

So financially, there is nothing major against this move. As long as your assets minus debts are more than 1 million Euro and properly invested.

As for the kids, enrolling them in a very good state school would help immensely with socialization. Your daughter might have some difficulty adjusting during the first year or so, but she will soon find her place. The younger child will have no problem adjusting.

Not being a social butterfly is nothing to be ashamed of. However, do encourage your children to socialize and be active members of the community, even if they resist. It will teach them important life skills. Make sure they become active and voracious readers of both Polish and English literature from an early age, and also develop their math skills far in advance of their required school work. And keep them involved in extracurricular activities.

As for your husband, if he is content with early retirement, great. Chances are that that is how it is going to work out. Encourage him to spend his time intensively learning Polish so that he does not die of social privation.

Of course, it's not going to be all wine and roses, but with a 1 million euro safety net under you, you will be able to deal with any curve balls life sends your way.

And of course, you do have to discuss this with your husband, without the aid of rose-colored glasses. Some guys thrive in this situation, and others fade away. You're going to have to have a good heart to heart.

I wish you well!

Love / Urgent Relationship help - wife wants to stay in Poland [118]


A lot of us have seen nasty divorces, where people act even against their self interest just to stick it to the other party, and use the kids as weapons.

Hire a good lawyer, and trust them to do their job. They will have abundant experience in dealing with all the nastiness, and be able to get you the best outcome available to you with the least pain possible, that is, as long as you let them do their job without spoiling their game by opening your fat gob without their expressed permission. You might not get the bowl of peaches and cream you desire, but you can avoid the bowl of broken glass and thumb tacks.

Good luck!

Work / I have to decide between two job offers, Berlin vs Wroclaw [44]


That's not only true for opera, and not only true for Wrocław. Practically every large theater or opera in any city in any country offers standby tickets (except perhaps??? London which has a weird ticket sales system that I never was able to quite figure out). And they are often the best seats, as they belong to holders of season tickets who won't be there that night. Same with film festivals. Some seats are reserved for people with multipasses. If they don't show up on time, they forfeit their seat and it is sold as standby.

Love / English proposing to a Polish lady [31]


Most men wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of what they see. I certainly wouldn't have the slightest clue. Better to ask sisters and friends, or show them the box and let them figure it out.

Work / Polish / Irish couple with kids moving to Warsaw - finding a job without any connections. [37]

@Atch

Actually, I'm not sure that her motive is to make more money. It may be a case of Polish woman wants to go back home to be with her family.

The lower cost of living is unlikely to offset the loss in her husband's wages. She seems to be aware that they are going to take a big financial hit on that front.

I agree that it is going to be disruptive to the children's schooling, and like how you figured out when a move would be least disruptive. She does need qualified advice as to how to best prepare her children for university, and herself for the costs.

A lot depends on how much they have saved up already for college and retirement. I reached my retirement goals early, so moving to Poland was an option even with the loss of income figured in. If she's not all saved up, her savings potential is going to be lower unless her husband figures out a way to earn a decent wage.

@Anitta

It would help if you told us more about your motivation behind coming to Poland, and your long term plans. And about how your husband's and children's thoughts on the move. I really can't figure out what you are trying to accomplish.