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A fellow, non-American mega Patriot like me. Love to see it. There are dozens of us! Your post is written much better than mine, but I feel the same.
Logistics
Your girlfriend is.. American. You realize how massive of a jackpot this is for an aspiring immigrant. You literally got the easiest path to immigration handed to you on a silver platter.
I propose a change in strategy. Don't convince her to live in America.
Put a ring on it. (Worst comes to worst you secured something valuable)
Convince her that getting US experience will be paramount to your career in "medical ML".
Leave her wherever she is "temporarily" and start your career in the US. This will be hard, but your eyes are on the prize. Keep in mind, you are extremely passionate about "medical ML" and your state of being and happiness depends on it.
"Dear girlfriend, I am making far too much money in the US now, we would have to be idiots to not settle here." She might become a "Dear ex" in this process, I wouldn't put that past the realm of impossibility.
Alternatively, do realize that you are already one of the lucky ones. The UK is still a gazillion times better than India. It's no America, but a large part of that is in your head. You don't really need air conditioning in the UK, You don't NEED a 7 bedroom McMansion, and it's still a million times closer to America along the reasons you like America and dislike India. The UK is not a bad place to live, all things considered, in many cases, it's actually better than the US. You get walkable cities, proximity to Europe, and potentially better social life (just go to your local pub, man (you won't find those is Suburban New Jersey, lol). Also in my experience, brits are a lot easier to get along with because they actually understand sarcasm and banter, and Americans can be sincere to a fault, don't underestimate the importance of this as an immigrant, trust me on this, no amount of freedom of speech might be worth having no friends), travel visa-free to most places, etc. Don't ruin this one.
Additionally, As someone who has many relatives who are US citizens. You need to think long-term. And by that, I mean on the span of decades. If you didn't catch my drift yet... I'm talking about Canada. It's not America. You still probably won't be able to practice medicine. But it's quite similar culturally, and it's similar enough to the UK in ways that you might be able to sell this idea to your loved one. If you live in Toronto, NYC is just a 10-hour road trip away. And if you bootstrap that "medical ML" thing hard enough, you can work for a US firm and make it there significantly easier (TN VISA) than anywhere else, it won't be easy, but easier. Worst comes to worst, you'll at least have the land of the free in your backyard, and you'll be closer to it.
Why I'm a Patriot
I was fortunate enough to visit the US as an adult just a few years ago, my experience is still fresh in my mind and I haven't gone through any ideological shifts.
I'm a libertarian and I already went to the US primed with the notion that, "This is THE place in the world that aligns closest to my values, or at the very least, I am to find people who are, more than anywhere else". I don't mean this lightly, I think the First Amendment is one of the all-time greatest ideas ever. If I ever came across the reincarnations of the founding fathers, I would bow down and touch their feet.
Being there in the flesh only reignited my love/admiration for the place.
Everywhere I went, I saw "For Hire" signs, I don't think Americans realize how much of an aberration those stupid lazily printed-out A4 papers hung hastily to the windows with an unevenly cut piece of cello tape are to the eyes of a foreigner. What do you mean I can just get a job?? All I have to do to.. not starve is just walk in here and show up? I found myself asking over and over again, how can people live in "poverty" is this country, it makes no sense! Not minding that "minimum wage" workers here were making more real money than entry-level engineers make in my country.
http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
I just felt that if one truly wanted it, they could make something of themselves there. The infrastructure and network to make that happen were in place (relative lack of nepotism, relative lack of credentialism, ability to change fields, general abundance that allows employers "to take a chance" on risky candidates, relative presence of meritocracy). You would just have to.. work hard. But people work hard everywhere for nothing at all! Working hard is far from the worst thing one can do in life. And I work in tech. I make decent money. More than a significant portion of people my age. But still, it's nothing compared to my fellow US tech workers. I weep when I see the salaries they make out of college! I work 12 hours a day and on weekends. Just let me into the US, and I will take yer jobs!
There were the people. People would just strike up conversations in the grocery store line commenting on my choice of energy drink, etc. While I walked past them in the suburbs they would yell "Hello!". While I was checking out computer parts at micro-centre, Other random shoppers would come and talk to me about what I was buying and why, what games I play, etc. And those "racist" people in the south, those ladies still called me "sweetie" and asked how I was doing, a brown guy. This was a very different America than the one I read about on Reddit.
The sheer abundance doesn't even need to be talked about. For all the "trashy" people that frequent Walmart, they still have access to a helluva lot more things than most "Elite" people anywhere else for that matter.
But all those things are just icing on the cake. The cake is that you can really make something of yourself there. This is 100x worth its weight in gold more than anything else. All my relatives who went there really did go there with pennies to their names. They bootstrapped themselves into 6 figure salaries living in McMansions from flipping burgers and having to eat leftover scraps at their fast-food jobs. The point isn't that there is an easy path, the point is that there is a path at all to begin with.
I finally remembered to re-read your comment and give it the attention it clearly deserves, not that I'm any less sleep deprived now than I was when I first saw it haha.
I appreciate that you shared your experiences, it largely confirms what I myself expected from years of hearing about the place, but independent confirmation is always great to have.
While I'm not a card carrying Libertarian, I'd describe myself as a classical liberal with libertarian tendencies, and there are few enough of the both of us that I see no need to nitpick!
I personally find a tendency for governments to stay out of the affairs of consenting adults refreshing, and in this day and age that's practically reactionary to espouse.
All excellent points. I do however want to state that it's not just the relatively lower salaries that make me scared of the UK, it's the fact that the government has explicitly committed itself to replacing doctors with automation from above and
trained monkeysmidlevels like PAs and NPs below, and even I as an IMG (international medical graduate) represent an assault on the value of the local doctors, though at least on the latter they're usually too nice to complain.Junior doctors in the UK need a 40% payraise to restore pay to the level it was at in 2008, and when they just about had enough and went on strike this year, the government offered a 5% payraise when inflation was 10%.
Given how foreign doctors are treated as a means as an end for propping up the failing NHS, the moment we're obsolete it won't end well.
The minimum thing that would grant me a sense of security is citizenship, and it would take 6 years. That's already more than my median timeline to transformative AI.
US doctors take better care of their own, and if I can't become a citizen of the UK in time for it to matter, I'd rather have spent my time doing my residency in the States.
If this wasn't a serious concern, I would have fewer qualms about trying to establish myself there. All the real moneymaking opportunities for UK doctors like locums or switching to pharma are either drying up or will be packed with people realizing this sooner rather than later.
I'm sure you understand why my timelines suggest that planning decades ahead is a little foolhardy for me, for the above reasons.
I see the next ten to twenty years either going very well or very poorly for most of us, but I'm very sure that what almost certainly won't happen is the "business as usual" that most forecasting implies.
I don't think I'd be outright miserable in the UK, far from it, but it will still be tight, and it's a risk I'm afraid of taking.
At the least, I think I'd find myself consumed with angst over the road not taken, and while the UK is a well maintained thoroughfare compared to an India dirt trail, the US is a 12 lane superhighway. I feel like I owe it to myself to at least try, even if success or happiness isn't guaranteed.
I deeply appreciate British humor, they have the sort of dry, understated wit that matches my own. The funniest friends I have are British, and they give me cramps from laughing on the regular!
I don't see myself as being unable to find plenty of people I'd get along with in the States, especially since that's where so many of us Mottizens are from.
Either way, thanks for sharing your own story, and I do hope you get to take a jerb or two if you can. US programmers won't even notice that rounding error in their outcomes that represents, and it would make a world of difference for you.
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great post. But just a quick correction. In the US, it is letter sized paper, not A4.
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I just woke up and am still reading through the 25 new comments this got, but I do need to clear this up, my girlfriend is not American!!
I now understand why you and someone else got confused, likely because I used the phrase "like many Americans" in my essay, but I thought not saying "like many other Americans" would make it clear she wasn't one.
I'll get back to the rest of your comment, but I do hope it wasn't load bearing on this.
Ahh shiet, yeah it was load bearing for some of it. Maybe the first 20%.
I was wondering why no one else is hooking onto that crucial detail, guess sleep deprivation is catching upto me.
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