Imagine going to a foreign country you’ve never been to before, trying to perfect their language, going to a new school, meeting all kinds of new people and living with a different family. Sounds adventurous, right? That’s what the exchange student program is; an opportunity to travel and learn about the world.
Right now, Sacred Heart has 9 exchange students in grades 10-12 from Thailand, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Chile and Colombia. Students stay at our school for a month, a semester, or a whole year.
While studying abroad, they stay with a host family in the area. That’s a family who volunteers to take care of an exchange student temporarily. They can have kids of their own or not, they might be young or older. It can sometimes be awkward, after all, they technically are strangers at first. But the situation is usually comfortable. There can be multiple exchange students from different places in the same house, which can be nice to become friends with someone in the same circumstances as you.
After being asked what her favourite unique thing Ottawa has to offer was, Kate Kolk, a tenth grader from Germany responded;
“The people here. Everyone is so nice.”
However, Vittoria Cicioni from Italy stated that the scenery was her favourite.
“The landscapes. It’s beautiful here. We didn’t really have fields where I lived. Snow was really new to me.”
Not all schools are like Sacred Heart; it can be quite a change coming here. For example, did you know that in Germany, there are around 12 classes and they repeat weekly? Or that Italy has a thirteenth-grade?
There are many study programs abroad in many countries and they communicate with each other to coordinate exchanges. High school students from Sacred Heart are in fact eligible. To learn more, visit international.ocsb.ca.