2/19/2008 - Exchange Students Offer The World

Dylan Buell
Marquette High School

One thing I’ve been lucky enough to do is travel abroad. Since I was 10, I’ve visited other countries, starting with Canada. Next came South Africa, then the Netherlands, Belgium and France. I returned to France last summer for a month.

I’ve always loved traveling to see how different the other side is. But traveling to all these places is expensive, not to mention the pain of finding time to take all these trips. For me, it’s almost better to have the country come to you.

I’m talking about hosting a foreign exchange student. It’s cheaper, easier and more convenient to experience another culture this way. It’s an opportunity to grow and make new friendships, like I made with my foreign exchange student from France last year. He stayed at my house for four weeks in late winter, and I stayed with him for four weeks the following summer.

“It’s great to have a first person perspective to learn about other cultures and especially to make new friends,” said junior Clare Vernon. “I look forward to having exchange students because you can learn so much about the world we all share.”

Sometimes you might hear a rumor about how the people in that country live and form a bias without even meeting them. Now, you have a first-hand opinion of how the people truly are.

Currently, I’m hosting a French student named Alexis. (Don’t pronounce the ’s.’) He’s visited the United States one other time, and speaks English pretty well. His reasons for traveling are almost the same as ours.

“I like to meet new people and see how they live in different countries,” he said.

He attends an international school in France where learning English is an important part of his education, but he says that overall, English isn’t that important because nothing they see in the entertainment world is in English.

And when I asked if he would ever visit the U.S. again he said, “Of course!”

If you get the chance, traveling the world is something you should never pass up. I’m really looking forward to having the opportunity of studying abroad in a few years. But if you don’t have the money, just invite the country to you.

Dylan Buell is a senior at Marquette Catholic High School. He is a student columnist for The News-Dispatch.

This article was originally published here.