The journey to work is indeed an important one. The journey though is not so clear for international school teachers, when looking for jobs at schools and cities/countries to which they have never been. So let’s share what we know!
One of our members, who works at the Copenhagen International School (Copenhagen, Denmark) described his way to work as follows:
In August, there is plenty of light in the morning; always good for putting a smile on your face and good thoughts in your mind. Also the weather is a bit fresh already in the morning, meaning you need a light jacket on during this time of the year. As I leave my apartment building, I see a sea of bikes and people on bikes zooming by me. Gotta keep a keen eye on the street and the sidewalk to check for other pedestrians and bike riders otherwise you will be run over!
Next I get on my bike, glad that it wasn’t stolen the night before. I choose to leave my bike (locked) on the sidewalk every night, even though it is very common to get your bike stolen in Copenhagen. I have a place to put it inside my building, but it is more convenient to just leave it on the sidewalk. Also, I have never got my bike stolen, but many…many people here do. I got my bike for free actually (It was gifted to me when a colleague left the school to move back to his home country), so I’m not too worried about it getting stolen. It is definitely not the first bike that a stealer would choose to steal as it is pretty old looking.
As much as I would like to ride my bike all the way to school, I choose to just ride my bike to the nearest train station (a 2-minute ride). If I do ride my bike all the way to school, it would take around 25-30 minutes. In a few minutes, I am at the train station. There is usually a space to park and lock my bike nearby. Then I walk up a few steps to get to a long bridge-like walkway. The walkway spans 8 tracks I think. It is a big station. There are two ways I can get to the train station near to my school (Hellerup), the S-train and the regional train. If you miss one train, there is always another one coming soon. The regional train might be a bit faster because it doesn’t make any stops to Hellerup, the S-train stops at two train stations in between my station and Hellerup.
The S-train can have a lot of people, so it can be crowded (not so fun), so when I can get on the regional train, I do that instead. The train ride is maybe 4-6 minutes long and then I’m at Hellerup. Many people get off here as it is another hub for many trains. Typically I run into other staff members on the train or getting off at Hellerup. We say good morning and then walk together to get to the school campus. The walk from Hellerup to the campus is like 1 minute. The current school location is VERY convenient to public transportation; super important when working at an international school.
My total journey to work, if I time everything right, is between 12-15 minutes. Super convenient. I forgot to mention that I could also take a nearby bus to work, but that would not be the best choice. The bus can be very crowded as well and the journey is longer, maybe 20-25 minutes.
When it is a sunny morning (which it usually is during this time of the year), the journey to Copenhagen International School is a really great one. It is so relaxing usually and oh I forgot to mention you can watch the sea go by as you look out the window of the train!
Copenhagen International School is actually building a whole new, purpose-built school. It is going to be located even closer to my apartment! The best part of this new school campus is its location. The new location will be on the water. I can’t wait!!
Currently, we have 14 international schools listed in Denmark on our website. 6 of them have had comments submitted on them by our members. Check out which ones here by using our school search feature and ticking the box ‘schools with comments’. Copenhagen International School is a very popular school profile page on our website. It has 183 total comments on it (one of the most on our website so far). It also has 11 members that either currently work there or have worked there in the past (which is the 2nd highest number of members for a school profile page).
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