Au Pair Tells of Her Transition from Driving in Columbia to Taking Driving Lessons with Local Driving School Shift Above 2

An Au Pair is often a young person from another country, who helps with light housework or childcare in exchange for room and board. They typically stay for one year, during that year they drive the family car.  This can be a daunting task here in the US since our roadways differ from the ones in their country.  

Maria an Au Pair here in New Jersey and, one of our students, shares her experience: 

My name is María, I’m from Cali, Colombia. I came to New Jersey as an Au Pair. I have been driving for 5 months manual and automatic vehicles in my home country and here in the United States. 

I have some concerns about driving in the US, for example, one of my chores is to transport my host kid frequently and with safety. Then, I was worried about a lot of differences between drive laws and street signs system between both countries. And the last one, pass both text and road test, to get my drivers license. 

My concern with my driving is my nervous about doing something wrong or don’t know enough to be able to drive in different contexts. My host mom and I found Mike’s contact when we were looking for driving lessons for Au Pairs, which mean a lot of differences between us, like a new country, vehicle, laws, roads, language, etc, and a native person learning how to drive. 

The lessons were easy to understand and in case you can’t understand something, Mike has the right pedagogy and tools to explain to you until you can understand. He was so patient and supportive, he knows the difference in the process of keening when you are an Au Pair and he’s ready to tell you respectfully when you are doing something well or something wrong, and how to do it step by step. 

The information was enough, Mike told me about what’s going on in the real road world. He was so clear. My responsibility is to practice with the tools he provided me. I feel I have improved a lot, no matter if we were working on specific topics, Mike told me how to improve some other things as advice to be safe and more comfortable on the road. 

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I have to say thank you, Mike, because I feel that the invested time was very well used, and now I feel more confident. Moreover, Mike has a great website where he has a lot of important information about the lessons, and all the information you must know to drive. He shares a lot of practice tests that helped me study for my knowledge test, they are a lot, I used them and I could pass my test. 

In addition, as Au Pair Instructor, he knows that our first weeks in the US are difficult while adapting and he asked me if I want to talk with other Au Pairs that are taking the driving lessons with him too, to meet new people and hang out to have fun!! Now, I have two great friends from two different countries, thanks, Mike. 

Thank you so much, Mike!!! I would recommend you with closed eyes.