Each year OHS is responsible for welcoming many fresh faces to campus including several foreign exchange students. Coming from a wide range of countries, they arrive ready to learn and eager to meet their new peers.
A year studying abroad as a foreign exchange student is a time filled with excitement over the potential that lies ahead. Still, understandably, there is plenty of anxiety over everything these students leave behind.
“It’s not easy. It was a little bit hard when I left Italy. I left my parents and my friends, but now it’s okay,” said Paolo Barisone, junior.
Though they may initially be weary of the changes ahead, foreign exchange students are enthusiastic about sharing their experiences with their new peers.
“[I like] exploring my parent culture, my country, and saying good things about [both],” Barisone said.
Whether they are talking about shared experiences at OHS or offering their unique perspectives to classmates, many foreign exchange students have a passion for meeting new high school students.
“I really like meeting new people here, talking to them, and just trying new things here that I couldn’t,” said Adam Sloma, junior.
Beyond riveting conversations with peers, OHS provides many opportunities for students to engage in. While attending school, foreign exchange students often have supplementary work courtesy of their exchange.
“It surprised me that there is so much stuff to do inside the school. Most people don’t know that I have a lot of stuff from the organization that made my exchange. I have to do a lot of additional work and stuff like that,” Sloma said.
When it comes to the experience within the classroom, foreign exchange students work together with their classmates to adapt to a new way of learning.
“I used to learn things just by looking at books and doing some studying but here I learn things from talking to people [and] from talking to teachers. It’s different ways of learning things,” said Sylvia Cheng, junior.
Due to new ways of learning school material, many foreign exchange students also experience an unexpected change to the structure of their school day.
“What surprised me is that everything here is so different from my country, like the schedule. Our school used to end at 5 p.m., which is a lot longer than here, so lots of things are different,” Cheng said.
After initial changes, OHS’ foreign exchange students have persevered through challenges. With the good relationships they are fostering with their peers, they are shedding light on their perspective of the world.
“I think it’s the people here. I like the people here because they’re not mean and they’re nice to me. They’re friendly and they like to ask me about cultural things and I think it’s interesting for me to open my eyesight of my view to the world,” Cheng said.
