I have been asked the question many times “What do Exchange students even do?” Well to tell you the truth, it’s a lot more information than what anyone expects, but I sum it up into one word “LIVE”.

Not to toot my own horn, but Exchange Students are some of the most outstanding people you will meet in your life. We have all been bitten with the disease to explore the world and to become something more than what we are. We have to travel and see as many parts of the world as we possibly can. We are not satisfied staying in one place for too long.

What do we do? We study. We leave everything familiar to us. We explore. We make bonds with people all over the world that no one else can even fathom. We break boundaries. We educate others. We become something that we never knew was possible. We change. We adapt.

We are the crazy kids that get dropped in the middle of a foreign country, with no idea of which way is up. We become the people our parents always wished that they could be. But most importantly, we thrive.

Many people try to relate exchange to the same difficulties of going of to college in a new town, but trust me, it is much more difficult. Most of us are at least 3000 miles from our “homes” and spend months contemplating our decisions of coming to the unknown. After initial shock, we realize that we couldn’t picture ourselves anywhere else. We learn languages, even ones not related to the culture we are submersed in. We expand our knowledge of the world, and want nothing more but to share it with others.

We attend schools in another language and have no idea what is happening, but continue to push ourselves to be as uncomfortable as possible. We are comfortable being uncomfortable. We realize that we have many more homes than what we thought. We have one thing we all want… to explore!

We start to think about traditions back home. We forget about them. We start forgetting our own language and can only remember the words in our new language. We are happy. We are sad. We are depressed. We are ecstatic. We love to have a healthy dose of knowledge and an unhealthy dose of food. We have happy “Hello’s” and tear-filled “Goodbye’s”.

We know what we want. We don’t know how we want it. We don’t know where we want it. We don’t know how we will do it. But, we know we will do it. We are wanderers. We are travelers. We are anything we think we are. We talk to strangers. We eat things that only resemble food. We live.

Exchange is not something that can be understood, because it cannot be defined. It can only be experienced. We can tell you “Oh exchange is this amazing thing where you go to another country for a year and learn a new language and culture.” Well in my opinion that just does not do Exchange any justice. It is much, much more than that. Exchange is more difficult than moving to a new town. But, more valuable than all the money in the world. Exchange is not a Year in the Life, but a Lifetime in a Year.
-Jay Rhoden Outbound to Poland 2013/2014