Remember expat Margaret from Seattle, who has signed up for the InterNations Munich Community? Since Margaret is still busy dealing with all the red tape from the municipal authorities, she hasn’t really had the time to log in during the past few days. However, she receives an e-mail notification that there are now her first two private messages in her InterNations inbox, so she decides to be back and have a look at her account. 
Since her registration, the Community Ambassador contacted her to give her a personal welcome; but Margaret doesn’t quite understand the position of an InterNations Ambassador yet, making a mental note to explore this later. The standard message from our InterNations Team Account explains how to build and enlarge her contact network on InterNations: Margaret, however, realizes that her profile doesn’t provide other members with much information right now. This, she decides, has to change before she starts connecting with others. How else should they find out whether their interests and occupations match?
By clicking on the “My Profile” link in the navigator box on the left side of the start page, Margaret indeed finds her own profile page very quickly – and is amazed how blank and non-descript it still looks. So, what to update first? Maybe a recent photo that’s already stored on her hard disk. She just needs to click on the red “Upload” button and browse the pictures from her own computer to opt for one. The “Edit Profile” button, she assumes, should let her fill in more information immediately.
Margaret’s profile before her update (click to enlarge):
Margaret’s profile during the updating process, new picture included (click to enlarge):
Going through the three different tabs – general, which covers her international experience; private, where she can share more about her origin and her hobbies; professional, to present her education and work experience – Margaret eventually comes up with a profile she finds much more satisfying and presses the Save button. Now other InterNations members can see that she spent some time in Germany before and in France and Japan as well. In fact, she worked as an expat English teacher since she has got an M. Ed. for English as a Second Language from Seattle University – a qualification she thought important to mention too. She’s looking for new friends in Munich, and she’s hoping to find nice, open-minded people with a similar passion for backpacking, hiking, creative writing or motorcycle tours…
Margaret’s new profile (click to enlarge):
Perhaps there is a case for having seperate nationalities for the Americans who may prefer to identify themselves as being of United States nationality or Canadian nationality or any of the nations in central and south America who are also Americans.
I havent actually seen the drop down since reading this. It seems fairly obvious so perhaps my comment is out of place
@John:
If you look at the drop down on our page, you’ll see that it contains American (which refers to US citizens) as well as the precise nationalities for people from Canada (Canadian), Mexico (Mexican) and every other country in North, Central and South America.
Hi Donna,
Of course there is a nationality for expats from the USA, who make up a sizable part of our memberbase. It’s simply listed as “American” in the drop-down menu for nationality. Hope that helps!
I am curious to understand why under nationality there is no option for United States of America