Has your child or anyone you know been a foreign exchange student.

[lynn]

My ds wants to do this and go to Germany. I would like him to have this experience but the thought of him not being able to come home for an entire year doesn't settle well with me. Anyone know anything about this program? The program is through Congress-Bundestag youth exchange.

[SFP]

My daughter went to Germany through the Congress-Bundestag program. It was a wonderful experience for her and we enjoyed going over at the end of the year to meet her host family and to travel through Europe. She still keeps in touch with her family and many of the friends she made and has gone back to Germany a couple of times since.

 

She went the year after she graduated from high school. I think the older kids fared better emotionally than the younger ones, plus she'd already been accepted to college and found it easy to have her scholarship deferred, so she didn't have to stress over credits transferring or what not.

 

Plus, no one forces the kids to stay the entire year. There were kids who came back early for a variety of reasons.

[Moxie]

It really depends on your host family. My sister went to Spain for a year (I don't know the name of the program) and her host family wasn't great. Make sure there is a way to switch families easily if it isn't working out and make sure your son knows to speak up for himself if something isn't right.

[SFP]

CB is quite good at working to find a host family the exchange student will be happy with. Kids who want to change families are able to do so.

[NorthwestMom]

I was an Exchange Student to India through the Rotary Club back in the dark ages before the internet, e-mail, and cell phones. It was fabulous and the best, most amazing experience. I would encourage you to let your child go and keep in touch through modern technology. :)

[dangermom]

I was an exchange student--Denmark--through YFU, also back in the dark ages, in my junior year of HS. We wrote letters and called home twice. I have to say that it was a great experience for me--very difficult and very worthwhile and wonderful. I kind of figured that if I could do that, I could do anything, so I never worried much again. (That year also got me into a very good college, where I met my husband.)

 

Two of my brothers went to Germany, too. It was great for them.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

My ds wants to do this and go to Germany. I would like him to have this experience but the thought of him not being able to come home for an entire year doesn't settle well with me. Anyone know anything about this program? The program is through Congress-Bundestag youth exchange.

 

I really cherish my experience. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much of Germany my host mom arranged for me to see. She sent us (host brother and a neighbor who was also hosting an American) on bus trips with the local farmers, on car trips in the area, on long car trips to friends and relatives all around Germany. One of my favorite stories is arriving in Berlin about the same time that Reagan was speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. My host brother and German friends thought the idea of the wall coming down was simply stupid and was a mark of how naive Reagan was. I told that story often when we lived in Germany a few years ago.

 

Any exchange like this will have a lot of stressors from how much is involved and all the things big and small that are "not normal," but I think they are also deeply rewarding. I think one of the conversations I would have is that while it is important to try to accept things that are different, it is also important to speak up if things are very uncomfortable.

 

The Bundestag program is a very good program. FWIW, they always have more German applicants than they have willing host families.

[dangermom]

One of my favorite stories is arriving in Berlin about the same time that Reagan was speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. My host brother and German friends thought the idea of the wall coming down was simply stupid and was a mark of how naive Reagan was. I told that story often when we lived in Germany a few years ago.

 

 

Ooh, so that was 1987? Wowee. I was living in DK in 89-90, right when the Wall fell. My host Dad was German, so he was glued to the TV. I was quite surprised by how uninterested my classmates were.

[Matryoshka]

I was an exchange student in Germany the year after I graduated from high school. I was in Europe for 14 months at that time. One of the best experiences of my life. I went with some obscure program no one's ever heard of - I haven't heard of the program you're speaking of, but it sounds like others have had very good experiences.

[Puma Mom]

I was an Exchange Student to India through the Rotary Club back in the dark ages before the internet, e-mail, and cell phones. It was fabulous and the best, most amazing experience. I would encourage you to let your child go and keep in touch through modern technology. :)

A friend's dd went to Hungary with the Rotary Club after her senior year a few years ago. She felt like she had a great experience there, but came back a bit messed up. They threw her into classes that were impossible for her to understand at the high school level in a foreign language vs. the math and science classes she asked for. Her host was a single mom with a dd that resented her being there, taking up space. She ended up switching to another single mom whose kids were grown and who worked a lot. Basically she spent a year having fun--seeing Hungary, hanging out with friends at school (since the school didn't care--and seemed to prefer--if she cut classes) and generally doing whatever she pleased.

 

When she started college the next fall, she floundered. She felt like it wasn't "real life" and she was frustrated that she didn't have the time to develop relationships because of the bothersome classes. This is a very bright young lady, but it was as if she lost her bearings. She's doing better now, but she's still trying to figure out what she's doing in college. She's a dreamer, and I think being able to spend lots of time dreaming that year got her out of the habit of thinking. If that makes sense.

 

I would say, from what I've heard, that this was an exception. But I'd want there to be a purpose and goals for the experience.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I was in Berlin again for a short bit over the summer of 1989. I would never have bet that the wall would go down a couple months later.

 

I can remember walking back from an early morning crew team practice and seeing the headlines in all the papers delivered to the dorm rooms. I really couldn't believe that it had happened.

 

When we lived in Berlin, I took people around to where the wall had been and you know I had to work to find bits and pieces to show them. It was actually a challenge to find the remaining bits of the wall or to show them the checkpoints going in and out of East Germany on the Autobahn.

 

What is interesting is to see that just as it seemed improbable that the wall would ever come down, now it seems that people have problems conceiving of a wall that divided a country and another that divided and surrounded a city. How do you explain the Berlin Air Lift to people who can't get their hands around the idea of the city being cut off?

[keptwoman]

I've never been but I've known a lot of kids who have and hosted a few too.

 

I think that a child needs good self resilience to go. I've seen kids who should not have been sent so I'd want to know how the organisation does their selection. What do they do to ensure a kid is good to go (and in my experience as both a host parent and a host parent and hosted student support person; a parent isn't always the best person to be the judge of this) Also how much preperation they get before they go.

 

I'd also want to know whether the organisation has a good support system in place when the kids are over there and from what others have said in this thread it appears that the one you are looking at does. The ability to talk to someone in the organisation outside of the family and have the ability to change families if there is true incompatibility is important. But it's also important that a child goes with an open mind about where they will live and who with. I've seen some kids get very upset because they had set themselves unrealistic expectations about how their lives would be in their new country (I have to say though that that is from poor preperation of the students from the organisation before departure)

 

I think most kids come back much stronger and more independent than when they left but it does cause many kids to reevaluate their lives and it may mean that the path they were looking at for their future before they left is not the path they want when they come back. Many get the wanderlust and spend a few years wandering the globe before settling down... but I don't think that's a bad thing. I've yet to meet a kid who has not benefitted a great deal from the experience; even the ones who shouldn't have been sent.

[SFP]

Many get the wanderlust and spend a few years wandering the globe before settling down... but I don't think that's a bad thing.

 

 

That's my daughter. Just this year she's been back to Germany, spent five weeks in New Zealand and Australia, and will spend a month backbacking in India starting the day after Thanksgiving.

 

When are you going to grad school? I keep asking.

[Amber in AUS]

My cousin went on exchange to the German speaking part of Switzerland. She had 2 bad families and then an OK family but she didn't love any of them. She learned to speak High German which no one speaks in Switzerland so whilst they understood her when she tried to communicate with them they would not respond in a way she could understand. She was very isolated throughout her stay, but she had just come out of 5 years of boarding school so i guess she was tough and resilient.

 

After completing her 1 year exchange she returned to Australia and completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Uni, then went on to work for 3 years before packing it all in to travel. She is currently traveling in Europe.

[Jennifer in MI]

Both my sisters did a summer program in Germany. It was the perfect length and gave them both a taste of the culture there as well as a love for travel. Perhaps you can find a summer program?

 

I did a semester in Spain in college. I had been very sheltered and it was VERY hard for me. I'm glad I did it, but it was hard.

[Pixie]

I came to the US as an exchange student during college. My school in France had an agreement with Washington University in St-Louis so I got the chance to go there to study for a year and transfer all the credits back home (a US student took my spot in France). I lived in the dorms so I have no experience as far as living with a host family, but this year of studying abroad was a great experience that eventually led to me moving here a couple years later.

[Starr]

I was an exchange student in Germany long ago as well. We wrote letters in the tiniest script imaginable so everything would fit on an air o gram. Is that what they were called? I phoned home twice. Just think today you could email and skype. It was a wonderful experience for me! I am still in contact with my host family and have hosted some of my host sister's children for summers. Many of the exchange programs were begun after WW2 to encourage better relationships between the US and Germany. If your child is motivated and you have contact it would be very rewarding. You learn so much by listening before you can keep up with conversation. I went to school for a couple of months, worked in a Kindergarten, and a school for children with special needs and had a newspaper route. There are many possibilities. I had finished high school but was just 17.