Have you ever stepped outside your comfort zone ? How did it make you feel ? Now think about what it would be like to go to a foreign country for high school! That is what many of our new students are feeling as they have trekked far and wide to come to Prep! The Rambler caught up with a few of the foreign exchange students attending Prep this year to ask learn about where they are from and what they are excited to learn about in America.

Pau Barea Solves is from Valencia, Spain. The hardest thing for him to adapt to has been the language. His favorite thing about his town is the beaches and the sea. He is most excited about meeting new people

Pau is not the only person from Spain as my next two interviewees are also.

Luis Romero Halcon is from Malaga, Spain. The hardest thing for him to adapt to is the culture. The thing he is excited about is learning to speak English better and bring it back to his country. An interesting fact about where he is from is it is also on the beach.

Andres Rodriguez Sanjurjo is from Coruña, Spain. He also says the hardest thing to adapt to is the language. He is most excited to learn the culture of America. One interesting fact from where he is from is it has some of the best cuisine.

Jing Yang “John” Lin is a sophomore from Taiwan. He also shares the opinion that the culture is the hardest thing to adapt to. He is excited to learn about the language and culture, too. One interesting fact about where he is from is that, on average, Taiwanese students study 12 hours a day. John also said that his culture differs greatly in how they deal with people.

“For example, Americans cultures are free and open, so most people show enthusiasm to strangers, but Asians are totally different,” John said. “Our traditional culture makes us avoid problems, so most of the time we are friendly to strangers, but not that positive.”

This is very interesting and shows how culture may affect their experience.

Another interesting thing is what John said correlates with a message that Mr.Dougherty says. This is Mr.Dougherty’s 17th school year. All 17 years he has had foreign exchange students. The program runs by an agency who works with Prep in order to market to students. This agency finds people interested in Prep and connects them to the school. This year is different for a couple reasons, according to Mr.Dougherty.

“Due to the late start, we were able to get a couple more students whose plans fell through,” Mr. Dougherty said. “Also, this is the first time we have primarily European students, which is a change from the past.”

There are many things other students can do to help the foreign exchange adapt and feel comfortable. “The thing these students want most is friends and to learn the American culture,” Mr. Dougherty said. “They may be shy because of the language, so other students should reach out. If you have an event, club, or just any activity please reach out and include these students so they can have a great experience.”

Cathedral Prep has been known for having a huge alumni base. Today, there are many alumni that live nationally and in some cases internationally. With people from around the world coming here it shows the pull of Cathedral Prep can be grown even more. This is great for the students as it gives them different perspective from what they are used to hearing. It could even help students better understand their heritage that they otherwise may not have not known about.

One thing for certain is that these students have put themselves out there, and it is our job as a community to help them adapt. Their whole experience of America could be changed by how they are treated at Prep. In some way everyone at Prep is out of their comfort zone this year with the new building and the merging of schools. So when you see a foreign exchange student go out of your way to say hi and maybe learn something about their culture. Also, include them in what you are doing and any clubs or activities in order to help them have the best experience they can.