My Exchange Year

Before I left

I remember hearing about what an amazing time my neighbor had had on his high school exchange to Madrid three years ago. I remember talking to my parents about going to a boarding school. I wanted to leave the town I had been living in for the past 9 years so badly. Looking back now I am happy I did but I had no idea what I was getting myself into by agreeing to do an exchange year. My personal first choice always had been the United States, when that didn't work because my Mom is an American citizen I opted for Canada. I remember looking up agencies and going to a convention in Germany, trying to find an agency who offered International Baccalaureate Schools and how some of them didn't even know what it was. I was there with my Dad and he really liked an organization whom we later contacted to see whether they would have a school I was interested in. My reasons for doing an exchange year were not the usual ones: my mother tongue is English and while I may not have had it in school as a first language, I wasn't going abroad to learn the language, I also didn't particularly see it as a year off but more of an escape from the life I had in Austria. I was fed up of having teachers who either didn't want to teach me anything or didn't even speak English even though they were supposed to teach us in English. A lot happened during my time at that school, a lot of things that might have been accepted 150 years ago but really shouldn't now. My reasons for doing an exchange were to get out of the town I was living and maybe even do two exchange years and finish my diploma abroad. After having had an interview and talked to the Lady from the organization my dad had liked, I found out that they didn't have any IB schools that offered the subjects I wanted to take in their portfolio. I didn't want this to happen again, so I looked for schools that offered the subjects, contacted them and asked if they take exchange students. Some of the schools didn't reply but the one I ended up going to did. For legal reasons unfortunately all I can tell you is that it was located in the middle of nowhere. Even though my parent's friends warned me and told me that this town was really not that nice and just cut off from anything else I decided to contact the agency whom the school had referred me to. I had a Skype interview with the owner's son, I remember being so excited and looking forward to this new chapter in my life. We talked everything through with my parents and he told them that the host families who hosted in this town were very aware of how rural it was and willing to drive their host students places due there being very limited public transport available. My parents agreed to let me go, I don't want to seem ungrateful I really am lucky to have been given this amazing opportunity that other people dream of having, but having had the experience I did, I feel really bad for how much money went to "waste" because of this exchange.