What is an exchange program?

Imagine you get a one-of-a-kind opportunity to abandon temporarily the life you’ve been used to live so far and try to sort of ‘start over’ somewhere else, in a place where nobody knows your name and where you don’t know anyone either.

Imagine one day you wake up in a reality you are a total stranger to, yet the reality which you have to learn to treat as normal, which you have to adapt yourself to and learn to live it on an everyday basis.

Imagine you’re suddenly on the other side of the world, alone, where perhaps nobody knows anything about the place you’re coming from, where everybody speak a language you’re yet to master and have habits that are of no resemblance to yours.

Your job is to forget everything you’ve ever thought, knew, and expected; to open your mind to new people and new perspective; and to live a little bit differently for a time.

This is what an exchange program is in a nutshell.

What might be confusing, and from my experiences I know it is, is the word “exchange”. The study-abroad programs we’re talking about are one-way, meaning that no one comes over to your place ‘in exchange’ for your trip. The idea of an exchange refers to the cultural exchange, where both the student and the representatives of the host country share the elements of their cultures, traditions, or history. It’s all about the cultural exchange that widens the intellectual and social horizons of both sides.

This is how it looks like from an organizational point of view: you go to a foreign country (with most popular and most supported destination being the United States of America) for a semester or a whole school year. You live with a host family that provides you accommodation, and you’re attending a school you’ve been assigned to.

An exchange program is obvious opportunities and benefits, but it’s expectations put upon you as well. You’re part of a family that hosts you, what means you’re supposed to help them up with the chores and take part in the family activities. As for the school, keeping the attendance and the grades at a satisfying level are critical to make it through the whole exchange program, as the academics is usually the key goal of an exchange program.

Don’t worry, though – if you you’ve got the predispositions to become an exchange student, you prove it and you are accepted to the program, you’re very unlikely to fail at any level and you should make it through the whole thing without getting into serious troubles.

This, on the other hand, doesn’t mean an exchange program is easy and straightforward. Not at all; it’s a never-ending chain of challenges which you have to learn to cope with and challenges that shape your personality and develop skills that are so critical later on in life.

But no matter the costs and challenges, the exchange program is definitely worth participating in – and as long as you have such an opportunity, DO IT. I would never ever dissuade anyone from studying abroad. Even if, for some reason, an exchange program turns out to be a total disaster, it’s still worth experiencing, because, again, you’re learning a priceless life lessons which you are going to remember and make use of for the rest of your life.