My exchange helped me to be a better leader, and to be more helpful in my family and in my school. I learned how to speak another language fluently, but it’s not just that. You make connections. You make friendships. You make a lot of experiences and memories that are like gold.
The first thing that I asked myself is – am I brave enough to go out by myself? But my exchange made me braver. It’s made me more independent, and I think that it made me realize how important it is to just go for it.
I realized that if I don’t reach out and do things, the experiences are not coming for me because everyone thinks that I’m just another student. So I had to challenge myself to socialize and talk to everyone, and I made so many friends that way.
I feel like before my exchange I could kind of relate to other people. I could see the world from a different political party’s view or from a different religious view, but all American. Now I feel like I can see the world from the viewpoint of people from other countries too.
It was hard getting used to being in another country, but I was able to start relying on the people around me instead of my parents for emotional support. Any time that I did struggle with homesickness and missing friends, I had my host family to talk to about it. So that was handled very,
One of my biggest concerns before leaving was not being able to make friends, but now I don’t know why that was a fear. Everyone was so welcoming! And the teachers were all really supportive of us and excited to have us there. Actually school ended up being one of my favorite things about my
My host families were so welcoming to bring me into their home. They also sent a student on exchange, so they really understood what my parents would be going through and what I was going through too. I feel like we were really connected right from the beginning just because we all understood that experience.
Studying abroad made me less shy and more open to making contact with people. It made me feel like a part of something. And even now, when I meet people who tell me they went on an exchange, it feels like we’re all part of something bigger, and that’s really awesome
I feel more open about the world and the people that live in it. Meeting so many people from different countries made the whole world seem more real. That made a great impact on me because I think we should all learn about what’s going on in the world.
Meeting other Rotary students in my exchange area was special, because we were having the same experience. We had the same feelings about everything that was going on. Plus they were from a different home country, so we could work to learn the new language together.