Why YOU should become an exchange student.

Buonasera a i miei amici di i Stati Uniti, e Buongiorno a i miei altri amici!

Woah, how awful was my grammar there? I honestly don't know.

So friends, tomorrow will be my 12th day without my information about my host family. Also known as I am slowly going insane. No offense to anyone that is working on getting it to me, it's just that I'm so excited to find out who the heck decided to let me live with them for 10 months. Hopefully I will get to know them in the next day or so (I say for the 11th day in a row).

Anyways, the intentions for this post is to speak to the hearts and souls of all those future AFSers that happened to click on this link. First off, I LOVE YOU. And hopefully, welcome to the AFS family! Hopefully you are seriously interested in becoming an exchange student. Speaking from the fact that I haven't even left the country yet, there will probably be another post about why you should become an exchange student during/after my actual exchange.

1. Make new friends that share the same interests as you. I live in the cornfield-infested part of southern Pennsylvania, and there really isn't much movement in and out with kids. Since kindergarten, I've had almost all of the same classmates in my grade and the surrounding grades. The only way I really ever got out and made friends in other districts was through youth group and my community children's choir I was a part of for 5 years. That's literally it. AFS opens you up to meet new people. Through a group I found over Facebook for just kids going to Italy with AFS for the 2013-2014 school year, I have gotten to know people from countries I could never imagine to have contacted. Skyping with Icelandics, Turkish, chatting with Canadians, Chinese, Italians, Russians, Chileans, Hungarians, and Japanese... I haven't even left yet and I have made friendships that will last me a lifetime. The best part about all of these people is that most if not all of them share your interests. It's like discovering the version of you from across the planet. They're going through the same waiting periods and paperwork you are, sharing stories and many, many laughs. I talk to more foreign AFSers than my friends in the USA anymore...
2. Becoming independent, mature, and determined in your choices. Being an exchange student causes you to be away from your home, family, friends, and school for 10 months. Though some think it's a pro to the situation, there will always be challenges abroad. On the program you may choose, be it for a few weeks in summer or a whole year like me, you will become independent. Flying almost alone internationally with only you and other AFSers, putting yourself out to other kids in your host community school, just to make friends, having the self discipline to get the paperwork done and getting yourself on that plane. That will make you a stronger person. Past AFSers say that you will find yourself on the exchange; you find just where you fit in this big world. And that, friends, is what everyone needs to find somewhere in life.
3. It's good for your education career. Colleges love seeing that you're fluent in a different language and that you studied abroad. You also get to learn in a different setting than you have been in the past 9+ years of schooling you've went through. 
4. Extending your family. Living with a family across the world brings in a whole new family to you. You'll spend 10 months with new grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and parents. If you're an only child, you could be put in a house with 3 kids. If you are the oldest in your family, maybe you'll get an older brother or sister. For me, I only have a younger brother and I'm hoping for a sister of any age, and/or an older brother! There are many ways it could go in this, but in any scenario you are placed in, you will create a lifelong relationship with your family. 
5. Experience the world from a different standpoint. Even though we live in the world of television, smart phones, computers, and radios, we still are sheltered from a lot of the news around the world. Witness news firsthand in a different area of the world and learn about what has been going on, but living in the USA has not given you the information. Economies are failing, revolutions are rising, segregation is being broken, languages are being spoken, disasters are creating havoc, and miracles are born. You will experience them in a different way than all of your family and friends could ever imagine back home.

There you have it. 5 reasons you should become an exchange student. Be it to Italy like me, Japan, France, Ghana, Brazil, Russia, or Indonesia, you will experience the same things...in different ways! Motivate yourself to achieve more in life; the world is waiting! Actually, your world is waiting.

 "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

~Gandhi

Peace, love, and pasta,

Kara