Senior Profile: Hadley Hyatt will work as an au pair in Germany

Before senior Hadley Hyatt first watched Savannah Tuma’s YouTube video about her experience as an au pair in Germany, she had never even considered the experience. But as she watched, she realized that being a full-time nanny in a foreign country would give her the opportunity to live abroad, while getting paid — an opportunity that isn’t likely to arise once she starts college and launches into adulthood. 

After spending her junior year as a foreign exchange student in Austria, Hyatt found a passion for experiencing different cultures. So after learning more about what being an au pair entailed, she knew she had to pursue the experience — the paycheck could go towards her European travel expenses. This January, Hyatt made a profile on AuPairWorld and matched with a family in Berlin, Germany who will provide an apartment for her to live in while she looks after the family’s children. 

After traveling to Chicago to get an au pair Visa, she will be ready to leave in July to work with the family for a year, where she will speak English to the kids in the family to improve their fluency, as well as carrying out typical nannying duties like taking them to and from school and keeping them entertained. 

“I had never even considered it until after I got back last summer from my exchange year,” Hyatt said. “I was originally thinking about going to college in Germany, but it’s really hard to get accepted there because the U.S. credits aren’t the same. I found au pairing and I decided that would be a good fit.”

Hyatt will also be taking courses at a nearby college, allowing her to gain some credits before she returns to the United States where she plans to study nursing at the University of Mississippi. 

With her weekends free, Hyatt plans to travel to Prague and Poland, taking advantage of relatively cheap and easy travel in Europe — especially since she won’t have to pay to live in the country. She also wants to visit some of her friends she met while studying abroad. 

Although this will put Hyatt a year behind many of her classmates, she feels that entering college a year later is worth the experiences that she’ll gain as an au pair. 

“After college, you immediately start working afterwards,” Hyatt said. “I felt like this was my last year before real life sets in. I wanted to be able to travel more, without having a lot of responsibility.”