Building a Career Far from Home, Part 1: Diane Bouis, PhD, MBA

I currently work about thirty miles from where I grew up. I like being close to my family and old friends. I enjoy the familiarity. It feels comfortable. But this experience has also led me to wonder why people decide to move far from home to build their careers. Some people move not just to a different city or a different state, but across oceans and continents, thousands and thousands of miles from where they grew up. I wanted to learn more about why people did this, their motivations, the challenges they’ve encountered, and how they think it has affected their career.

Diane Bouis, PhD, MBA

To help me better understand these things, I recently talked with Diane Bouis, the innovation program manager of the University of Michigan Venture Accelerator. Unlike me, she has built a career thousands of miles from where she grew up. Diane was raised in Europe, spending her childhood in Belgium. She received her undergraduate education in Germany before completing her masters and PhD in the Netherlands.

For many PhD scientists in Europe, coming to the US for a stint in a research lab is a rite of passage. After doing your time in a US lab, the classic path for a European scientist is to go back to Europe and get a faculty position. Many of Diane’s European colleagues viewed research experience in the US as an absolutely necessary line on your resume in order to successfully progress through your academic career once you returned to Europe.

Like many fledgling scientists, Diane heeded this path and came to the US after her earning her PhD. She came to the University of Michigan, doing a post doc in a cardiovascular lab. She loved the research environment here: from using top of the line equipment and having the funds to do important studies, to participating in exciting collaborations.

As she was finishing her post doc, she made two big decisions. While she enjoyed her time in the lab, she decided that she wanted to leave academic research. She also realized that she wanted to stay in the US and decided to veer away from the usual career trajectory for a European scientist.

To Diane, these two choices were closely intertwined. Leaving academic science would mean having to reinvent herself. She felt that professional reinvention was easier, perhaps even encouraged in the US, which was one of Diane’s major reasons for remaining in America. This ability to reinvent yourself stands in stark contrast to her experience in Europe. In Europe, one feels the weight of history. Some people can trace their family lineage back a thousand years. There’s more of an expectation to know one’s place in society. Society seems skeptical of people who try to deviate from their preordained career path. This attitude can feel restricting, extinguishing ambition and making career changes harder to execute.

A more rigid underlying class structure also meant that not having attended the “right” high school, prep school, or college means it can be hard to move up in your career. Networking is viewed more suspiciously, compounding these limitations if you or your family don’t already have connections to facilitate your career progression.

In the US, Diane felt more encouraged to explore new paths and sensed more opportunities for social mobility. Free from the weight of society’s expectations, she embraced her chance to change careers and expand her skill sets, going to business school and getting her MBA at the University of Michigan. After earning her MBA, she worked with a local consulting firm before eventually coming back to the University of Michigan, where she’s currently using her unique collection of skills to expand the university’s Venture Accelerator. With these experiences in America, she believes that it’s easier in this country for a person without an established professional network to successfully build one from scratch. People seem to be more open to newcomers and willing to help where they can.

Diane has now lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan for over 15 years, longer than in any other location. Earlier this year, she decided to become a US citizen, recently enjoying her first official Thanksgiving as an American.

Since Diane has been in the US for over 15 years, I wondered if she “felt American” and if she considered herself assimilated. Diane said that she feels like she belongs here more than in Europe, so yes, she thinks of herself as mostly American. She feels mostly assimilated and has bought books and other cultural touchstones to help her better understand American culture. She enjoys American BBQ and has enthusiastically embraced the diversity of nature present across the US, spending substantial time in the country’s national parks.

When we were talking about her experiences, I asked her what actions she took to adjust to living in America. Her answer touched upon a truth that applies to many aspects of life: communication is key. Diane believes that language is an absolutely vital component of fitting into a new culture. So she has made efforts to adopt an American accent (her English teachers in Europe were British so her English originally had strong British influences). Being a language nerd, she pays careful attention to the expressions and words used by others, trying to adopt what she frequently hears. She has purposefully picked up American idioms and phrases, with the occasional assist from Google for definitions. Diane believes that language is the path to a person’s heart, so getting it right matters. By adopting the language of a new environment, she hopes to show respect, empathize, and build personal connections with the people around her. Her eager adoption of American language customs has helped her feel more at home in the US.

While she enjoys many aspects of America, she does miss some things from Europe, from little things like a proper sauna and certain foods to major things like her family. She’s the only member of her family that’s not in Europe, so developing ways to stay connected with family is important. She has a family tradition where she calls her parents every Sunday. More recently, she and her parents have been doing video calls with FaceTime, allowing her to experience meaningful moments with her family even though there’s an ocean between them. She tries to go back to Europe at least once a year, though when she’s there, she sometimes exhibits some of her American behaviors, such as smiling at strangers and engaging the locals in friendlier conversations than they may be used to.

As interesting and informative as Diane’s story is, in many ways, it may not seem surprising, especially to an American reader. As Americans, we grow up with stories of the American Dream and the idea of immigrants getting new opportunities to thrive in America. Diane’s story resonates with us because it closely hews to our expectations and with what we’ve been taught. Diane came to America and embraced opportunities that may not have been available in Europe, and she has built a thriving career. In many ways, Diane’s story is the American Dream.

But what happens when an American decides to leave the US and build their career in a foreign country?

What’s that like? What’s the motivation behind that? How does that shape a person’s career? In Part 2, I talk to someone who decided to build his American Dream overseas. Interestingly, we’ll find common themes underlying his story, Diane’s story, and possibly even your story.

Special thanks to:

Diane Bouis, PhD, MBA, Innovation Program Manager, Venture Accelerator, University of Michigan (dbouis@umich.edu)