Many students think school is hard enough while living in Chatham County, but picture living in a completely new country and attempting to not only pass your classes but also learn an entirely new language.
This is what life was like for junior Mara Klein from early October to December of last year. Klein took part in a seven-week, full-immersion French program in Quebec, Canada, and she arrived knowing no French at all.
“My first day was really nerve-racking,” Klein said. “I didn’t really realize what I was doing until I got off the plane and saw only French signs. [I] was like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s all French.’ It was really exciting, but that was the point when I got scared.”
Despite her initial fears, Klein says she has changed her opinion of Quebec drastically.
“At first it was really aggravating [being in Quebec], because no one understood me, and I didn’t really understand anyone, but now I’m loving it,” Klein said.
Similar to Klein, junior Meredith Avison is spending the entirety of her junior year in Germany.
“I go to an American-German school, and I’m in the American part, so the schooling system is not that different since I’m taking AP courses,” Avison said. “People are so much more enthusiastic [about school] here. They’re really smart; it’s scary.”
This is not Avison’s first trip to Germany; she spent two and a half years of her life living with her father in Berlin from age three to six.
“[Studying in Germany was] a pretty great opportunity, and my dad lives here, so I wanted to spend a year with him,” Avison said. “And to learn German, of course.”
Despite growing comfortable with the countries that they lived in, both Avison and Klein have experienced adversity at some point during their trips.
“I’m in Quebec City and… I got lost on the buses my third day here…. I guess I kind of jumped into everything really quickly and ended up walking, lost all around the city for five hours on a Wednesday night,” Klein said. “They say there’s usually ‘culture shock’ and moments when you want to go home, and for me, that was that night. But since then, I took my time to learn everything about the city, and I just try to be like a [citizen of Quebec] in my day-to-day life.”
Avison experienced trouble of another kind.
“[In] 40 degree rainy weather… my train home stopped and turned around because of a fire at another station,” Avison said. “So here I was, no map to be found, in a place I had never been. I navigated to another station after walking an hour in suburban German neighborhoods and along highways. It was quite the adventure.”
Setbacks aside, both Avison and Klein encouraged other students to study abroad as well.
“I think it’s a really good thing to break out of the traditional path of school and do your own thing that’s best for you, because traditional isn’t always the best,” Klein said.
Avison offered three pieces of advice to students hoping to study abroad in the future.
“It’s okay to be sad and miss home, you’re going to feel really, really American at some point and never eat out at tourist-y restaurants.”
– By Sawyer Davis