Foreign exchange students bridge cultures at Medford
There are a total of 10 foreign exchange students in Medford Area Senior High School. These students are from all across the world including Italy, Mexico, France, Ecuador, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The way the foreign exchange program works is that there are local coordinators placed all over the US that find homes for foreign students by reaching out to them. They try to match hobbies, likes, and interests to host families. The students may choose to pick where they want to go, but it may cost more to go there.
The students pay for their exchange experience unless they are grant students (students that submit essays and do interviews to get a spot) and the government pays for their experience. What they ask for in a host family is that they open their home and hearts to accept the student. The host family must provide meals while at home and a bed to sleep in. The student comes with spending money and insurance. A number of these students were asked about their experience.
Alice Boldrini is from Brescia, a city in Italy. It has a population of 200,000 people. They have plenty of places to take a walk or to relax while being surrounded by nature. The weather is considered nice and warm, especially when being compared to Medford. When asked “What would you tell others about your country?’’
Alice said, “I would like to tell them to come to Italy during summer to see beautiful landscapes and try some real spaghetti and pizza!”
Alice chose to come to the US because since she was little she had always been fascinated by the lifestyle of teenagers here. The school sports, school dances, and school dress-up days. She wanted to see how people really lived here. Wanted to verify if life in the US was as cool as the movies. So far Alice has said it has been. Alice has been to the Frosted Formal and is on the basketball team. Alice has also said, “It is also cool that I am living in a small community such as Medford because I am able to experience a sense of community that is lacking in my hometown.”
When Alice arrived in Medford, there were many differences between here and her home. The first big difference she noticed was in regards to the food. She saw that Americans eat a lot of junk food and don’t follow a balanced diet. Also to her, Americans have supper very early, while she had dinner at 8 pm in Italy.
The second major difference was how school was viewed. Alice saw that school here is supposed to be fun, while in Italy it is supposed to be hard. In Italy, she was always stressed and struggling to keep up with all her homework. While in the US, the amount of material she spent studying for a month is almost the same amount she studied in a day in Italy.
Alice also enjoyed the fact that people here can have a driver’s license and a job at 16 years old. Alice thinks that teaches a lot of independence and responsibility. Alice said, “People in Italy might be academically way smarter than Americans, but they lack common sense to deal with everyday life.” In Italy school is six days a week. They have 5 years of high school instead of 4 and don’t have extended learning times, study halls, school sports, or dances. Alice finds this unfortunate, she believes that you should be happy when you wake up for school.
Emilia Zapata Andrade is from Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It is a big city, full of people and interesting places to go. It even has a well-preserved colonial center, so if you’re interested in history, this city is a good place to go. Ecuador is an especially beautiful place to visit. It has delicious foods and people that are going to treat you as if they’ve known you for years.
Emilia’s reasoning for coming to the US was that she really liked English. To her, English is the world language, and learning is important to her. So she found an opportunity to learn English while living in the country she always wanted to be in.
The first huge difference she found between America and her country was the school system. In Ecuador they have to take 16 classes each year, all of them are required. Grades 7 through 9 are free but after that, parents must pay school fees if they want their children to study further. Another difference was having access to a kitchen, barn, and lockers at school. She thought it looked a lot like the movies.
She also found the food schedule strange. In Ecuador, you have 3 main meals but lunch is the biggest meal. So she noticed that here lunch is a small meal and dinner is where you eat the most. She found it equally weird that backpacks were not allowed inside the school.
Milou Van den Boogaard is from the Netherlands. His hometown is not large but compared to Medford, it is. All the houses are built close together. Everyone under age 18, gets around by bike and that’s how they get to school too. There is a river that goes straight through Milou’s town where some of the houses are built beside it. There are mostly families in his town so there are usually children playing outside. It is a very beautiful place to live.
Milou wanted to come to the US because he always wanted to play a sport for his school. He wanted to experience that special kind of school spirit that comes from school sports that isn’t in the Netherlands. Milou always dreamed of playing softball in the US. Softball is a really small sport in the Netherlands so he loved that everybody here knew and liked it.
Milou also found school to be very different to his own. In the Netherlands there are not as many classes to choose from, similar to the other exchange students. Milou also viewed the Medford school as a place for everything and anything you can think of. In the Netherlands they did not play sports for their school. Sports were separate from the school and to participate in sports you would have to join a club. A similar difference was the food. In the US, people eat a lot of meat and the drinks you get in restaurants are much larger. Milou has also never experienced so much snow for so long before, until Medford.
All three of these students have been enjoying their stay in the US. Even though they had fears of being homesick or not being able to speak English well enough. Emilia loves the variety of people, the respect that people show, and finding people that she’ll never forget. Alice has made many good friends here and has loved her stay with her host family. Milou found everyone to be incredibly nice and loves the access to sports here. Alice, Emilia, and Milou are sad to leave the US when it reaches the end of the school year.
