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| Fiona Reed is a foreign exchanged student from Australia. She encourages students to join World Heritage and become foreign exchanged students. |
World Heritage
Fiona Reed | 2/5/08 | Opinion
ave you ever wanted to study in another country? Thousands of students every year take the opportunity offered by exchange programs to spend a year studying abroad. Exchange programs represent a unique chance to experience another culture, challenge yourself, and explore new surroundings. One such program is World Heritage, which sends American high school students to dozens of different countries each year.
Founded in 1980 as Spanish Heritage and focusing mainly on Hispanic culture, World Heritage has since expanded to embrace many other nationalities. A non-profit organization, World Heritage offers programs ranging in duration from a month to a year to exotic destinations such as Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and Thailand.
The process of becoming an exchange student is straightforward, and the rewards are numerous.
"It's scary. But it's quite possibly one of the weirdest yet most freeing sensation that I've ever felt. It most definitely opened my eyes, that's for sure," returned exchanged student Jillian Kneid said.
To become an exchange student, applicants must still be in school at the time they apply aged between 15-18, have maintained a C average or better since Year Nine, and be in sound physical and mental health.
Information nights are held in multiple locations throughout the year, including Fresno. If they meet these criteria, students must then submit the completed application package, undergo an interview with a World Heritage representative, and wade through a sea of paperwork.
Should the applicant be accepted by World Heritage's relevant partner organization abroad, then a host family is found all that is left for the student to do is pack.
An alternative to becoming an exchange student is to volunteer to host one. Host families learn about another culture, gain a deeper appreciation of their own through the experience of showing it to a foreigner, and forge a lifelong friendship with their host child/ sibling, all from the comfort of their own home.
Sherry Shannon, a guidance counselor at Granite Hills, was a host mother to a foreign exchanged student from Germany.
“[I] never really considered having an exchange student because you get to expose them to what you really appreciate about the United States, and learning about other cultures is interesting too,” she said.
Being an exchange student requires maturity, initiative, and above all flexibility. However, the benefits are plentiful.
“An exchange will be the best and hardest year of your life,” foreign exchanged student who Phoebe Tyszkiewcz said. She spent a year in France.
I heard this expression a million times before I went on my exchange. This is so true except, the hard parts last for minutes and the best parts last for months.
An exchange is truly the best opportunity of a lifetime. Students immerse themselves in another culture, which provides a unique opportunity to see the world from another perspective.
They may learn a new language during their time overseas, but more importantly, they learn about themselves and expand their horizons. Exchange programs offer a unique opportunity to challenge ones self, make new friends, and acquire traits such as independence and a more mature outlook.
For more information, visit the World Heritage homepage at
http://www.world-heritage.org/.
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