I'm a HS sophomore and I'm considering going to France or Italy or somewhere to be an exchange student for a year. I'm still not 100% sure if I want to, so do you have any helpful advice or stories/experiences? Also I'm debating leaving my junior or senior year. Which one would be better to go in? I was thinking junior year. ANY help is appreciated!
Studying Abroad - 1 Answers
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I was not, but I looked heavily into it during my high school years, and I feel this information may be helpful to you. First of all,you are saying that you want to go to Europe. Please note that about 97% of exchange student from the US want to go to Europe, particularly Spain, UK, France, Italy and Germany, whereas there are usually not a lot of spaces available to place students within these countries. Therefore, a question you may want to ask yourself is, would you still be ok with leaving if you were going to be sent to say, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan , the Czech Republic or Russia? I mean nothing against the countries( I actually have friends from all of them, they're very nice), but these countries are typically not the highest on the lists for most outbound US exchange students. Also, yes, I'd recommend going junior year. Senior year has a lot of important events going on during it that most students would not want to miss. However, note that you will be gone for a half year/full year. During that time, you will be away from your friends and family, so that would mean your senior year would be the time that you'd be recovering/readjusting back to your culture. Sometimes, people would prefer to be gone during their senior year, because that way they'd be more prepared for college life or living on their own as they would have to do upon returning home after graduating rather than spending their senior year trying to readjust to social norms. Truthfully, it's all up to you really.
