Paul Anderson – Australia, minus a few letters. Finding my creative space in Austria

Three years ago, I packed my life into a 25kg suitcase and left Dublin for Vienna. Like many people who move abroad, I imagined the change would mostly be geographical. “Ah sure it’s only a 3 hour plane away”. Instead, it changed how I think about work, creativity, and even what “home” means.

Moving to Austria meant starting over. A new language, new living situation, and a culture that felt both exciting and unfamiliar. Of course there were, and still are, moments I questioned whether I’d made the right decision. Building a social circle from scratch takes time. Finding your place professionally takes even longer. It can feel like everyone else already knows the rules while you’re still trying to figure them out.

Looking back, those uncomfortable moments were also the most valuable.

Today, I work as a Brand Content Specialist at paper republic, an Austrian stationery brand. When I first joined the company, my focus was mainly focus was social media. Since then, my role has evolved into something much broader: helping to develop creative campaigns, shaping brand storytelling, directing visual content, and helping define how a brand feels, not just how it looks.

One of the projects I’m proudest of was leading the creative direction for our recent Dúchas campaign, inspired by the Irish heritage and the idea of home. What started as a product launch became an opportunity to celebrate Irish storytelling. We collaborated with the storytelling collective Seanchoíche in Vienna, bringing together a room full of people to share stories about home and identity.

Living abroad has also taught me that careers rarely follow the straight line we imagine after graduation. I studied Business Studies with Marketing. In the first few weeks of my degree, I had thought about dropping out, striving to find something more creative. But the marketing world isn’t all just numbers and KPI’s. There’s real creativity needed to drive success. When I was 18 my dream was always to be creative director at a brand. I was always fascinated by creative concepts, photography, visual storytelling, and building brands through culture rather than hard core selling. Sometimes you only discover what genuinely excites you after saying yes to opportunities you never planned for.

Of course, moving abroad comes with sacrifices. I miss my mother’s hugs, watching my nephew grow up, hanging out with my Irish friends. The homesickness never disappears. But it sits alongside something equally important: independence. Living abroad has made me more resilient, more adaptable, and more confident in my own ideas.

If I could offer one piece of advice to current students, it would be this: don’t be afraid to follow curiosity over certainty. You don’t need to have your entire career mapped out when you graduate. The experiences that shape you most often begin with a decision that feels slightly uncomfortable.

For me, that decision was buying a one-way ticket to Vienna.