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January 24, 2018August 22, 2019

Learning a new language: seven inside tips to get you there faster

I want you to learn the language of your host country well – really well – for one very important reason:

If you speak the language of your host country well, your time on exchange will be much more successful, enjoyable, and easy. You’ll be more outgoing. You’ll fit in better with your classmates and host family. You’ll feel better integrated into society, and more able to enjoy the culture of your host country.

In other words, put in the time to learn the language well, and you’ll reap many rewards. There is literally no downside.

Here’s how to do it.

Tip 1: Grammar isn’t everything, but it is the most important thing

As an exchange student, you’ll most likely learn lots and lots of words and phrases every day.

However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that having a big vocabulary is enough. You will never become a truly accomplished speaker of another language until you understand the grammar, as well.

As an exchange student in Switzerland, I noticed that the exchange students who were the most confident and spoke the best German had an excellent grasp of German grammar. Those students who spoke German less well and with lower confidence generally had a lot of vocabulary, but had poor grammar skills.

Learning the grammar of another language is like learning a computer programming language. Hardly anybody has the patience and dedication to do it properly. However, if you are dedicated enough to really learn the grammar of your new language well, you’ll learn your new language faster and better.

How to do it

You can learn vocabulary of a second language by osmosis – by being around native speakers and listening to them speak.

Grammar isn’t like that. You can’t hope to learn grammar just by listening to others. You need to rote learn grammar concepts, and then do exercises which help those concepts to become ingrained.

Initially, you need to be familiar with a few basic concepts of grammar – the so-called “parts of speech”. In your mother tongue, learn the meaning and roles of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns. Learn about cases (nominative, accusative, dative) and the past, present and future tenses. Find out about the concept of verb conjugation.

Then, do some research into your new language. For example, find out if it has “formal” and “informal” forms of address, and learn when it is appropriate to address people formally and informally. You should also learn whether there are any particularly unusual, difficult or important concepts in the grammar of your new language of which you should be aware. For example, students of French usually really struggle with the subjunctive case.

Next, you need to find a good grammar textbook or other resource. For European languages, I recommend the Schaum Outline series of books. Otherwise, you can check with language teachers at your high school, or call the modern languages faculty at your local university to see which books and other resources they recommend for learning grammar. Whatever you use should explain concepts clearly, contain exercises which allow you to put the theory into practice, and should contain an answer key so that you can check your progress.

Do the time

Once you’ve done your background research and found a good grammar book or other resource, you need to get down to work. Try to set aside some time every day to rote learn your grammar and do some practical exercises. I used to learn German grammar on the 45-minute train trip to and from school while all of my classmates were doing their homework.

Is learning the grammar of your new language in this way dry and boring? Mostly, yes.

But does it give you a giant pay-off? Absolutely.

I guarantee that focussing on grammar and learning it well will make you a more confident and accomplished speaker of your new language.

Tip 2: Consume as much of the new language as possible

Your time as an exchange student represents a unique opportunity to spend all day, every day immersing yourself in another language and culture. Generally speaking, the more of a new language you expose yourself to, the more you’ll retain and recall.

So, from the very first day of your arrival in your host country, you should absolutely binge on the language and culture of your host country. Watch as much TV as possible. Listen to the radio as much as possible. Become a voracious consumer of magazines, newspapers and websites. Talk to anyone and everyone you meet – not only your classmates, but also the elderly lady next door, the conductor on your morning train and the guy who brews your coffee each morning. View every day as an opportunity to stuff your brain with the language of your host country.

Doing this all day, every day, will have several benefits. Like a sponge, your brain will soak up all of the new words and phrases you hear and will store them for you to use later. Hearing all of that language will also help to improve your accent and make it more natural-sounding. You’ll also be able to hear a lot of sound, grammatically correct language, which will help you to see the grammar principles you’re learning (see step 1 above) being put into practice.

Tip 3: Communicate as little as possible in your mother tongue

The flipside of point 2 is that it’s very important for you to consume and speak as little of your native language as possible.

The reason for this is simple:

Your new language needs to become the language which dominates your communication and thought patterns. The longer and more intensively you continue to communicate in your native language, the longer it will take for your new language to get ingrained and become your primary language of communication. And the longer that takes, the less time you’ll have to practise your new language.

And, of course, practice makes perfect.

For this reason, you should stop speaking your native language as much as possible. Keep communications – particularly phone conversations – with your family and friends at home to a minimum. If you have a choice, purchase magazines, books and DVDs in your new language rather than your native language.

Perhaps most importantly, you need to avoid hanging out frequently with other speakers of your native language. Specifically, you should avoid spending too much time with other exchange students who share your first language. It’s true that other exchange students can be fantastic sources of comfort and support – particularly when things are tough. However, if they have the same native language as you, spending too much time with them can also really delay your language learning.

As a compromise, consider hanging out with other students who have a different monative language to you. If your native language is English, hang out with the exchange students from Brazil, or Japan, or Hungary. That way, you’ll still get the benefits of support and camaraderie from other exchange students, but you’ll be much more likely to communicate in your new language.

Tip 4: Get a language mentor

I recently read an article about engineers. It said that you need to do an awful lot of engineering before you can become a good engineer. Irrespective of how smart they are or how good their grades are, engineering graduates usually need to do a lot of hands-on, practical work and make mistakes in order to learn the craft of their profession. Only once an engineer has made those initial mistakes and learned from them can he or she really understand how to do the job well.

Like a new engineer, when you first start learning your new language, you are bound to make a lot of mistakes. You’ll mispronounce things. You’ll use the wrong words. You’ll refer to things by the male pronoun instead of the female pronoun, and vice versa. Making such mistakes and learning from them is all part and parcel of becoming a truly good speaker.

To get you through this initial stage, you need to recruit what I would call a “language mentor”. Your language mentor should be a host parent, host sibling, or other trusted person who speaks the language of your host country as his or her mother tongue.

During the first or second month of your exchange, you should sit down with your language mentor every night for at least a couple of weeks and talk for an hour or two in your new language. The purpose of these discussions will be for you to practise speaking the language and put all of the vocab and grammar you’re learning into practice. It will allow you to make mistakes in a safe, low-pressure environment, in front of a trusted person who won’t react negatively to your mistakes.

The more you speak with your language mentor, the more mistakes you will make and get out of the way so that you don’t make them later. You should become a much more confident and fluid speaker, as well. Try it.

Tip 5: Ask questions of everyone else

Obviously, you’ll lean heavily on your language mentor in your first weeks and months on exchange. But you should also feel free to ask your classmates, teachers, other host family members and fellow exchange students for help with your new language.

Until I was a really confident German speaker, I would constantly ask questions about the language to anyone who was available. I’d ask my classmates about verb conjugations. I’d ask my host siblings how to put things into the past tense. I can even remember pointing to a word in a German-language book and asking a stranger on a train what the word meant.

Did it sometimes take courage to ask so many questions?

Sure. In fact, sometimes I felt like a complete ignoramus, particularly at the start of my exchange year. But I honestly never had anyone react badly to such a request. Everyone was helpful and did their utmost to explain things to me in a useful way. They even spoke very slowly to me at the start of my exchange, when I was really struggling.

Like me, you’ll probably have a thousand questions about your new language, particularly early on in your time on exchange. You might worry that your constant language-related questions will drive people crazy. However, the truth is that almost everyone will see how hard you’re working to learn a new language – their language – and will be happy to help you. So, ask away.

Tip 6: Practise, practise, practise

It’s easy to feel confident about understanding a language when you’re at home in your bedroom learning vocabulary or talking to your language mentor.

It is far harder to put all the theory you’ve learned into practice by conversing with actual people in the real world. In fact, it can be very intimidating to enter a shop, bank, or train station and start interacting with the people who work there.

Here’s the thing, though:

Each time you talk to another person and practise putting sentences together and listening to the response, it gets a little easier. The more you talk in your new language, the better you will get at talking. Keep talking, and your confidence will snowball.

So, talk as much as you can. Join in the dinner table conversation with your host family, the post-soccer game discussion with your class mates, and the before and after-school chit chat on the school bus. It is all a great opportunity to practise your new language and build confidence in your speaking. Make a deliberate effort to go out of your way to talk, rather than sitting there silently.

It’s also important to practise speaking to strangers, too – for example, when you’re shopping or buying train tickets. The reason is that the language and vocabulary you use at home with your host family and at school with your classmates is likely to be different to the vocabulary you use when you’re talking to less familiar people, in more formal situations. You need to talk to people in both familiar situations (eg your host family) and less familiar (eg a bank teller) situations. Talking to people in a broad range of situations will give you an opportunity to practise a broad range of words and phrases.

Tip 7: Supercharge your vocabulary learning

Like most exchange students who are serious about learning their new language, I used to carry around a little note book for language learning. Every time I encountered a new German word which I thought was useful, I’d write it down in the note book.

Unlike most exchange students, though, I’d add details about the word. If the word was a noun, for example, I’d also look up the gender of the word, and the plural form, and would write those down, as well. Then, I’d learn the word, its gender, and the plural, rather than just the word itself.

Learning vocabulary in this way took more time, but ultimately enabled me to speak German in a much more error-free way than if I had just learned the word itself, with no additional detail.

I recommend that you not only keep a little note book to write new words in, but that you add some details which will be useful to know later on. If your new language is like German, with gendered nouns, learn the gender together with each noun you learn. If the language is a tonal language, like Mandarin or Vietnamese, learn the appropriate tone that goes along with each word. If the language has characters which need to be drawn in a particular order, like Japanese, learn that order together with the meaning and pronunciation of the word.

Learning vocabulary in this detailed manner takes more time up front, but will save you much time and many errors down the track.

Do you have any language learning tips or tricks that have worked for you in the past, and which you think could be useful for other exchange students learning a new language? If so, please tell us about them in the comments area below.

As always, I wish you the best of luck.

Matt

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019

Solving the “wanting to go home” problem

(Note from Matt: This is a lightly-edited excerpt from the forthcoming book “How to have a Successful High-School Exchange”, which will be available for purchase from ExchangeStudentTips.com later in 2019)

The “wanting to go home” problem is a kind of evolution of the “homesickness” problem. Being homesick is one thing. Taking the next step and deciding to quit your student exchange and go home is quite another.

There are times where it’s totally appropriate to want to return home. This includes situations where you are in physical danger, or suffer a major illness. It can also include situations where your host family is unwilling or unable to support you due to illness or a death in their family, and your exchange organisation is unable to make alternative arrangements for you. In these situations, wanting to go home is a totally understandable solution to an intractable problem. I encourage you to return home under such circumstances.

However, in situations where your decision to go home is basically just evolved homesickness, I urge you to reconsider. Nearly every exchange student wants to go home early at some point during his or her exchange. The gravitational pull of home, the longing to be with biological parents and school friends, and the desire to be in a familiar environment can all be incredibly strong. However, the yearning for all of these things which seems irresistible eventually passes.

If you’re having trouble resisting the siren’s call of an early return home, try to talk yourself out of it by taking some of the actions below.

Give yourself a quick pep talk

Initially, try to give yourself a quick pep talk which effectively takes the “going home” option off the table. Tell yourself the following

OK. This is tough. Really tough, much more than I expected. I am trying my best and working really hard every day, but things don’t seem to be getting easier. School is hard. The language is hard. It takes a lot of courage just to get out of bed in the mornings and start the day and I am always so tired at night.

But, I am not going to quit. I am going to do something great here and I am not going to leave and go home until I do it. I have goals that I want to achieve. There are places that I haven’t been to yet and things I still want to do. There are a lot of good things about my host country that I don’t want to give up, yet. I have met some really kind people who have helped me a lot and who will keep helping me.

I will not quit. I want to kick ass and I will not quit.

I know that in three months’ time – one month even – things will be easier. My language skills will be better. I’ll know my way around better. I’ll be more relaxed and happier. If I go home now, I’ll miss those times and all the other good things that lie ahead.

I miss Mom and Dad and my friends at home, and they miss me. But they want me to be here and want me to do well. I want to go home – not early, but at the appointed time – and look them in the eye and feel how proud they are of what I’ve done. Because I stuck it out and did something really hard, but that will benefit me for the rest of my life.

Thousands of other exchange students have done it. And I will do it, too.

Think about the negative consequences

When you think about leaving your exchange and going home early, you probably only focus on the positive consequences of doing so. You think about seeing your biological family and friends again. You think about going back to your former, easier life, with no culture shock and no language barrier. You think that you’ll get on the plane and that’ll be it. Easy, peasy.

Ask yourself, though- if you return home, what will the negative consequences be? In student exchange terms, a student who decides to go home early is basically exercising the nuclear option. It’s a decision which usually leaves a lot of wreckage behind.

For one, your decision may leave many people disappointed and upset. A lot of people have worked hard to give you the opportunity to be on exchange, including your biological parents, your exchange organisation, your host family and people at the school which is hosting you. All of these people will most likely feel that the time, effort and money which they have put in amounted to nothing.

Your host family in particular might take your decision personally, and may feel like failures. Your host parents and your host school may decide not to host another exchange student, which may prevent others from having the opportunity that you’ve had.

You might also experience some personal negative consequences. For example, when you return to your school at home, many people will want to know why you came back early. If you’re honest, your explanation will be that you found it too difficult to be on exchange and decided to come home. Unfairly or otherwise, people might think that you simply gave up or were too scared or weak to see your exchange through to the end. Likewise, while a completed student exchange will look great on your resume, and can be a real asset to your career, you will need to explain a half-completed exchange (and the reasons it was half-completed) to any potential employer.

Will you regret your decision later?

If you’ve ever participated in a competitive sport, you’ll know that sometimes, something unusual happens.

When you don’t win a game, or don’t run as fast as you wanted to, or swim fewer laps than you wanted to, the overriding feeling isn’t anger or loss. Sometimes, the strongest emotion is a feeling of guilt and disappointment in yourself. In the shower after the game, or on the ride home, you feel that you could have met your goal or won the game if you’d just given an extra 5 or 10 per cent. Because you didn’t, you feel guilty and remorseful.

People who break off a student exchange and return home often experience similar emotions. While it felt impossible for them to complete their student exchanges at the time, in hindsight, it was just very difficult. Looking back, they realise that they had it within them to complete their exchange, and wish that they’d done so.

Ask yourself – is the situation you find yourself in now really an impossible one? Or is it just one which is difficult, and which will seem like a temporary setback if you choose to return home? Remember that you’re much stronger and more able than you think you are. Don’t underestimate yourself.

Think about what you’d be giving up

Another thing that may encourage you to re-consider a decision to return home early is to focus on what you’ll be giving up if you return to your home country.

For most exchange students, being on exchange is their one and only chance to live in a foreign country for an extended period. They get a chance to do new things and meet new people almost every day. Most exchange students who complete their exchanges have very fond memories of their time on exchange. They see that time as a brief but extremely valuable interlude which greatly enriched their lives, opened many doors and gave them many cherished friendships, skills and memories.

By comparison, your biological family and home country will always be there. In fact, it’s likely that you’ll spend the remainder of your life in your home country, in close and regular contact with your biological family. The time you have in your host country, on the other hand, is extremely limited. When it comes to an end, it will likely do so forever.

Sadly, also, once you’ve been home for a couple of months and are back into your old groove, that groove may start to feel like a rut. You may begin to regret your decision to come home. You may start to think about the new and exciting experiences you voluntarily passed up in order to get back to a situation which now feels like a rut.

For many people, a student exchange is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Once it’s gone, that’s it. Don’t pass up that chance unless you absolutely have to.

Avoid triggering events

While it’s possible to take steps to deal with a desire to return home, ultimately it’s far better not to have that desire in the first place.

What turns mere homesickness into a genuine desire to return home? Often, there’ll be an event which triggers the change. Most commonly, a student’s boyfriend or girlfriend or parents from home will come to visit. Such visits can be extremely disruptive and often leave the student feeling more homesick than ever. As discussed elsewhere in this book, if your parents, boyfriend or girlfriend want to visit you whilst you’re on exchange, either discourage them from doing so altogether, or ask them to visit only towards the very end of your exchange.

Alternatively, the student might have some sort of big showdown or confrontation with a member of his or her host family. Instead of eating humble pie, saying sorry and trying to repair the relationship, exchange students will sometimes use such a situation as a pretext for going home. If this happens to you, be humble enough to make amends with your host family – even if you think they’re in the wrong – and move on. Being able to say sorry will be an essential skill later in your life – particularly in your marriage, but also in your career – and can make a big difference to your success as an exchange student.

Try to avoid events which will push you from being someone who’s merely homesick, to someone who is actively trying to return home.

—–

For your sake, and for the sake of those who’ve supported you and want your student exchange to succeed, please don’t make a rushed decision to return home mid-exchange. Do your absolute best to make it work.

Good luck,

Matt

October 8, 2016November 27, 2018

11 Tips for a Successful Student Exchange Interview

If you want to totally dominate your exchange student interview, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s face it:

Being interviewed can be extremely stressful and nerve-wracking.

However, follow the step-by-step tips in this guide and I guarantee that you’ll go into your student exchange selection interview feeling well-prepared and ready for whatever the selection panel throws at you.

Exchange Student Interview — Sandsend Groynes, Yorkshire England (James Whitesmith/Flickr)

1. Calm your nerves by getting in the right headspace

Just about everyone experiences nerves and tension before and during an interview.

Here are three quick and easy ways to minimise those and have a positive attitude going into your exchange program interview.

Have a “Plan B”

A great way to take the pressure off yourself prior to your interview is to ask yourself this question:

If I don’t do well at this exchange program interview, and don’t get offered an exchange with this particular exchange program, what are my fallback options?

You most likely will have several different options open to you, including the following:

You can apply to go on exchange with another program
You can wait a year and apply to the same program next year
Later on, you can go on exchange to your chosen country as a university exchange student
You can go on an extended holiday to your chosen country

That’s the thing:

Even in the very unlikely case that you totally screw up your exchange student interview, it won’t be the end of the world – you’ll still have plenty of opportunities to get overseas to the country you are interested in.

Of course, you will try your best to be selected.

But, in the worst case scenario, there’ll always a “Plan B” open to you.

Understand that it’s not an exam

It’s easy to view your exchange student interview as a kind of oral examination, where you’ll be knocked out of contention if you give an incorrect answer.

That simply isn’t the case.

In fact, the main point of a student exchange interview is for the student exchange organisation to get to know you as a person and to assess whether you’d be a good fit as a foreign exchange student.

The interview is less like an oral examination, and more like a 20-30 minute discussion about yourself.

Can you talk about yourself for between 20 and 30 minutes? Of course!

You may be asked some general knowledge questions – see “Do your homework”, below – but overall, there will be very few right and wrong answers in your interview. So, try to relax.

Don’t over-estimate the competition

A common mistake people make in job interviews is over-estimating the quality of their competition, and under-estimating their own qualities as a candidate.

Don’t make the same mistake prior to your student exchange interview.

Here’s the truth:

You are a quality candidate with many strengths. If in doubt, take another look at all of the achievements you outlined in your student exchange application.

Furthermore, everyone else who is being interviewed and competing against you for the opportunity to go on exchange will be experiencing the same nerves as you.

Give yourself the best chance possible by going into your interview with a cool head.

2. Focus on, and optimise, things that you can control

There are aspects of your exchange student interview that will be within your control, and aspects that will be outside your control.

The key to good preparation is to perfect the things you can control, and prepare as well as possible for the things you can’t control.

In the “outside your control” box, I’d place the following:

the exact questions that the interview panel will ask you
the temperament or attitude of your interviewers
the strength of your competition (ie other students being interviewed for exchange)

Don’t get hung up on these things. The best you can do is prepare well for them, using the techniques and strategies I set out in the rest of this article.

There are plenty of other things that you can control about the interview that you should work on to maximise your chance of success. These will include the following:

your appearance (including how you are dressed and how generally neat and tidy you look)
how well-rested you are (make sure to have at least a week of long, restful nights before your interview)
punctuality (making sure that you arrive at the interview venue in plenty of time)
your general level of preparedness for the interview

Make a list of all the things about your interview that you can control. Then, resolve to improve or perfect those things as much as possible. Ultimately, you want all of the things you can control to be 100 per cent right.

Don’t obsess about things that you can’t control.

There are a huge number of things to do with your pre-exchange interview that you can control. Spend your time and energy getting those things right and you’ll give your chances of success a huge boost.

3. Boost your confidence and add credibility by reviewing and learning your written student exchange application

Don’t make the critical mistake of submitting your written exchange application and then not re-reading it prior to your interview.

In fact, I recommend that you not only read it again before your interview, but study and learn it by heart before your interview.

Here’s why:

If you followed my previous advice, your written application will have been chock-full with high-quality, pertinent facts about experiences and skills that you could bring to a student exchange.

The people interviewing you will have read your written application and are going to ask you questions about what you’ve written. Unfortunately, there’s no knowing which of your claims the interviewers are going to ask you about.

That means that, in order to be credible, you need to be prepared to answer questions about every single fact or claim that you made in your written application.

The best preparation is to go through your written application line-by-line, reminding yourself about the evidence you gave and preparing yourself to answer questions on that evidence,

Say, for example, you mentioned in your written application that you’d had a leadership position in your school. Be prepared to answer the following questions about that position:

How did you get the position – for example, were you selected by school staff, or elected by your fellow students?
What were your duties while you were in that position?
Can you think of a particularly challenging situation which occurred while you were in the position, and how did you deal with it?

Keep in mind that your interviewers are trying to assess whether you will make a good exchange student. So, if possible, try to memorise details about your experience which demonstrate that you are:

capable of acting independently
able to get on well with strangers
able to adapt to new situations
academically diligent

4. Do some homework and be prepared for general knowledge questions

I almost guarantee that the interview panel will ask you some general knowledge questions at your student exchange interview.

The reason why this is almost inevitable is simple:

If you are successful and become a foreign exchange student, people you meet in your host country will be curious about where you come from. The people interviewing you will want to know that you are able to answer basic questions about your home country.

So, before your exchange program interview, be sure to brush up on general knowledge about your home country, including the following:

The approximate size of its population
The name of the president, prime minister, or other head of state
The number of levels of government (federal, state, municipal, and so on)
A few basic facts about the economy – for example, main exports, largest companies, main sectors of the economy in which people work

A good starting point for this research is the Wikipedia page for your home country. Specifically, look at the fact box on the right hand side of that page. The fact box for Australia looks like this:

See that?

Wikipedia already gives you a neat little summary of facts about your home country. Learn those, and you’ll already be well set up with general knowledge for your interview.

If you want to go one step further and do some black-belt level preparation, check out the contents table on the left hand side of the Wikipedia page, which should look something like this:

An even better way to prepare for interview questions about your home country would be to find out and memorise 5-6 facts about each of those facets of your home country listed in Wikipedia – its economic strengths and weaknesses, demographic facts and trends, and so on.

Either way, you’ll be well-prepared for any general-knowledge questions about your home country.

Bonus tip: Learn something about the exchange organisation

There’s a possibility that the interview panel will ask you a question about the exchange organisation you’re applying with – something like “What do you know about Rotary/AFS/YFU?”

Or, if you’re exchanging as part of a twin cities arrangement, you may be asked what you know about the twinned city which you’ll be exchanging to.

Virtually no-one will be able to answer that question well or in any detail.

No-one, that is, except you. =)

As part of your homework before your interview, make sure to read up about the exchange organisation or twin city, and commit five or six relevant facts to memory which you can use if required.

5. Conserve energy to maximise your performance in the interview

When planning ahead for the day of your student exchange interview, you need to ensure that you organise the day so that you conserve your energy as much as possible until the time your interview starts.

Let me explain:

Everyone has a certain amount of mental and physical energy. Think about it like water in a drinking glass.

At the beginning of the day, most people’s glass of energy is full. When your glass is full, you are alert, can concentrate, and can think clearly.

Throughout the day, you take sips of energy from your glass. Sometimes the sips are small ones – like when you have a conversation with a teacher or friend, or sit in class. At other times, the sips are big ones – like when you have to give a presentation in front of your class, or have cross-country practice after school.

You can top up your energy glass by relaxing, having a meal or a nap. But, by the end of the day, your glass is usually empty.

Keep it topped up and full on the day of your interview

Now, on the day of your exchange interview, you need to ensure that your energy glass stays as full as possible right up until the time of your interview.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Give yourself plenty of time

Stress is a big energy drain.

The last thing you need is to be panicking and rushing around.

Make sure that you allow plenty of time to get yourself ready, prepare, and travel to the venue where your interview is being held.

Step 2: Keep things as normal and calm as possible

Start your day in the same way as you would any other day. Shower, dress and have breakfast in the normal way.

Make sure it’s a good breakfast, too – you’ll need the energy later on.

If you want to have a brief look at your exchange application, that’s OK. But keep it to ten minutes or less. Spending too much time thinking about your application and the interview will cause you stress, draining your energy too quickly. Again, you need to conserve all your energy for the interview.

Step 3: Get someone to drive you to the interview venue

Even if you can already drive, you need to get someone to drive you to the interview.

If it’s a long drive, the driving will tire you out and use up valuable energy.

More importantly, having someone to talk to on the way will take your mind off the interview and stop you from worrying away all of the energy you’ll need to perform well.

Don’t get the other person to coach you or ask you pretend interview questions. That will stress you out and use up your valuable energy. Instead, talk about TV, or baseball, or shoes, or whatever else helps you to relax.

Step 4: Top up and conserve your energy at the interview venue

Take a snack along with you and eat it 10-15 minutes before your interview. If your stomach is empty you’ll be distracted and won’t have the energy to concentrate for the whole interview.

Take a quick – two or three minute – look at your application, but no more. Your learning and memorising should all be done.

Follow all of these steps, and you should go into the interview room feeling as fresh and relaxed as possible, with plenty of energy to focus on the interview.

6. Make sure you can focus during your interview by minimising distractions

Most people have one or two things that stop them from focussing and concentrating.

For example, until I’ve showered and brushed my teeth in the morning, I feel half asleep and barely functional. Before I’ve done those things, I am too irritable and distracted to achieve anything.

Most people have one or two such personal “irritations”. There are also a number of common irritations which make it hard for nearly everyone to concentrate, including the following:

Needing to use the bathroom
Feeling hungry or thirsty
Feeling too cold or (especially) too hot

You need to take steps to minimise both your personal and these general distractions during your student exchange interview so that you can pay proper attention to the questions the panel is asking you, and formulate good answers.

Visit the bathroom before you leave home, after you arrive at the interview venue, and as often as you need to before your interview.

Bring a snack and a bottle of water, and take the water into the interview room if you need to.

Plan to dress in layers, and remove and add layers as required to stay at a comfortable temperature.

Do whatever it takes for you to block out any “noise” during your exchange student interview and focus on answering the panel’s questions.

7. Make your first impression on the interview panel a good one

There’s a well-known flaw in the human brain that you can use to your advantage in your exchange interview.

The flaw works like this:

When you or I meet someone new, we observe how that person acts for the first minute or two, and then assume that that he or she acts that way all of the time.

The people conducting your pre-exchange interview will also suffer from this flaw. They’ll assume the way you conduct yourself in the first few minutes of your interview is the way you conduct yourself all of the time.

Is this a bad thing?

Not necessarily. In fact, here’s how you can make that flaw work for you:

If you come across as being professional and courteous during the first couple of minutes of your exchange interview, the interviewers will assume that you behave professionally and courteously all of the time.

You can make a great first impression on the interview panel by doing the following:

Dressing conservatively and well – Males should wear a button-up shirt and trousers (no jeans), and black leather shoes. Females should wear a skirt or dress.
Being punctual – Plan to arrive at least half an hour before your scheduled interview time, and phone in advance as soon as it becomes apparent that you are going to be late
Greeting them appropriately – Shake the hand of each person on the panel and calling each person on the panel “Mr X” or “Ms Y”, or “Sir” and “Madam” once they’ve introduced themselves
Smiling – It costs nothing, but makes a big difference to how people perceive you

8. Know what questions to expect, and how to answer them

You can’t anticipate every question that the interview panel is going to ask. However, it’s likely that the questions the panel will ask you will include the following:

“Why are you interested in going on exchange”?

Purpose – Usually, this will be a “warm-up” question which is intended to break the ice and help you settle into the interview
How to answer – There is no right or wrong answer, so answer as honestly as possible

“Tell us about yourself”

Purpose – This is another “warm up” question, although it can also help the panel to assess how you go with introducing yourself to strangers
How to answer – Don’t ramble or tell your life story – six or seven key facts about yourself is sufficient. If the panel hasn’t already asked you why you want to go on exchange, mention the reasons at the end.

“Why do you think you’d make a good exchange student?”

Purpose – To assess how well you understand the role and desirable traits of an exchange student
How to answer – Reiterate some of the facts from your written student exchange application which demonstrate why you’d make a good exchange student.

“Tell us about your strengths and weaknesses”

Purpose – To test your honesty, maturity and self-awareness. Generally speaking, the most successful exchange students all share these traits.
How to answer – Don’t brag about what you consider to be your strengths. When it comes to discussing weaknesses, mention one or two – no need to go overboard! – and discuss what you do to overcome those weaknesses

“Why have you applied to go to (country X)? If you miss out on selection for (country X), would you consider going on exchange to another country?”

Purpose – To uncover your motivations for going on exchange and simply to find out whether you’d be open to going on exchange to a country other than your first choice.
How to answer – You can and should be totally honest when answering this question. Don’t say that you’d be happy to go to France if your heart is really set on going to Spain – you may well be sent to France. If you are sitting in a Rotary interview, for example, it’s quite OK to say that if Rotary doesn’t offer you an exchange to Spain, you’ll consider applying to another exchange program.

“What would you do if you weren’t getting along with your host family?”

Purpose – To assess your judgement and knowledge of how to solve problems appropriately
How to answer – If you have an issue with your host family that you can’t resolve directly with the family, you need to contact your exchange program coordinator or counsellor.

“Can you give an example of a difficult situation you’ve been in, and talk about how you overcame the difficulties?”

Purpose – Again, the purpose is to assess your judgement and resourcefulness
How to answer – Try to think of a situation where you faced a challenge similar to those faced by exchange students – where you had to act without the support of your biological parents, or were in a different culture, or had to overcome communication difficulties. The focus of your answer should be on the solution you found, rather than the problem itself.

9. Answer all questions professionally

Irrespective of the specific questions the exchange interview panel asks you, there are a few basic rules you need to follow when answering their questions in order to make a good, professional impression on the panel.

First of all, you are going to establish and maintain eye contact with the members of the panel while you answer each question. Many people find a lack of eye contact disrespectful and evasive. Conversely, making eye contact conveys an impression of confidence and certainty in your answers.

Then, you are going to use appropriate language to answer the panel’s questions. Remember, you aren’t talking to your school friends. You are talking to a group of 40- or 50-something adults who are most likely in the middle of a long and tiring day of interviews. You need to cater to your audience by:

saying “yes” and “no” instead of “yeah”, “yup” and “nope”
not using the word “like” unless you are expressing your affection for a particular thing
never, under any circumstances, swearing in your exchange student interview (even mild variants like “crap” are a no-no)

Also, try not to ramble. In general, you want to give “Goldilocks” answers, which are not too long, not too short, but just right. Two or three examples in support of each answer you give is plenty.

Within reason, you need to defer to the panel. In the event a panel member corrects you, or disagrees with something you say, just thank him or her by saying “Thank you, I wasn’t aware of that” or something similar. Arguing with a panel member about a particular fact or situation won’t get you the exchange you want.

10. Wrap it up well to leave the panel with a good final impression

When the interviewers from the exchange program have asked all their questions, you’ll most likely have a very strong urge to get out of the interview room.

Not so fast. There are still a couple of things to take care of.

Use your question to the panel to make one more positive impression

First of all, the panel may tell you that the interview is over and ask you if you have any questions before leaving. Most people are so keen to escape that they just say “no”. In doing so, they pass up a golden opportunity to make one final, good impression on the interview panel.

If the exchange interview panel asks you whether you have any questions, I recommend asking the following:

If my application with [Rotary/AFS/YFU/other program] is unsuccessful, is there anyone I can call to discuss the reasons why I wasn’t successful, and learn how I might do better next time?

This is a great question for a number of reasons:

It shows that you are humble enough to have considered the possibility that you won’t be successful
It demonstrates a willingness to learn from your mistakes
It lets the panel know that you are interested enough in going on exchange to consider re-applying if you aren’t successful the first time around

Try it.

Thank the panel members sincerely for their time

Don’t leave the interview room without saying thank you to your interviewers. They most likely are volunteers who have given up their weekend, evening or other spare time to interview you.

There is no need to go overboard – just say something like “thank you all for your time, it was good to meet you” in a way which shows that you mean it.

11. Don’t over-analyse the interview afterwards

Once your exchange student interview is over, the very best thing you can do is forget about it.

Think about it:

You can’t change anything once the interview is done.

There’s also no objective way of knowing whether you performed well or not. In fact, you are almost certain to believe that your interview went significantly worse than it actually did.

Also, a watched pot never boils. If you spend every waking minute obsessing about your interview and wondering how you went, the time until you find out the outcome will drag on and on.

So, let it go. Go back to your ordinary life. Focus on school and sports and music for a couple of weeks until you hear the outcome of the interview.

If you worry about the interview and your application in the meantime, just spend some time thinking about the Plan B I talked about under heading 1 above. There are always other options for you to explore.

Good luck,

Matt

August 23, 2018

Five exchange student “must haves”

I first went on exchange in 1996. For some reason, the planes of 1996 couldn’t carry very much luggage per passenger. (It was probably because it wasn’t all that long since the Wright brothers had invented flying). This meant that each of us was only allowed to take 20kg (44 pounds) of checked-in luggage.

I was going overseas for a whole year. As I was only able to take 20kg of clothes and other luggage with me, I needed to be smart about what I packed. Unfortunately, I was an 18-year old guy who’d never lived alone and had barely travelled overseas before. I was the opposite of smart. I filled my suitcase and carry on with all sorts of stuff, 90% of which I then never actually used while I was on exchange.

After I arrived overseas, I compounded my error by purchasing many books, CDs and other heavy items. I then had to schlepp all of this stuff with me as I moved between my four host families. Finally, I had to find a way to get it all back home at the end of my exchange.

In retrospect, I don’t actually think that you need much stuff to live overseas for a year. The secret is to take (and purchase) a few key items which you use over and over again. Even if planes have evolved since I was 18, meaning that you can now take unlimited luggage with you, you should still try to minimise the amount of stuff you take with you, and pick up along the way.

Here are five things that you must take with you or purchase when you go on exchange.

1. Black Polartec or polar fleece top

If you’re going on exchange to a place where it regularly snows or gets below 10 degrees Celsius, you need to take an overcoat or jacket of some kind. I took a long black trenchcoat, and a long-sleeved, quarter zip black Polartec jumper.

In no time, I ditched the trench coat and spent the rest of the year wearing the Polartec top. The main advantages of the Polartec were that it was light and was easy to wear when riding a bike, but very warm. The black colour was neutral and inconspicuous, so no-one noticed that I wore it every day. It went well with casual (school) wear, and didn’t look too bad over the top of more formal attire, like button-up shirts.

The trench coat, on the other hand, weighed a ton. It was terrible to ride in because of its length (and in fact it caught in the chain of my bike and ripped, twice). It was also a bit of a formal piece, which didn’t pair well with my usual school attire of jeans and sweaters.

Don’t repeat my mistake when selecting your outerwear to take overseas. Get something light, packable and neutral. My black Polartec was the perfect solution for me, and could be yours, too.

2. Grammar book and sensible dictionary

Books are heavy. Foolishly, I took a lot of them with me on exchange. As it turned out, I really only needed two – a grammar book and a dictionary.

As noted in my article on language learning, a grammar book is probably your single greatest asset when you’re learning a foreign language. You can use it when you start learning a language and need to learn the rules of grammar and then practise them. And you can use it as a reference book for the balance of your exchange. You’ll get a lot of use out of it.

You also need a dictionary. Get something sensible, like an A5-sized paperback dictionary published by Langenscheidt, Collins or Roget. You don’t need a hardcover, thousand-page boat anchor like the one I took with me. Keep it simple. Keep it light.

3. Radio of some kind

Your host family or families should provide you with access to a small stereo of some kind. If they don’t, it’s worth spending a couple of hundred dollars to purchase your own once you reach your host country.

Why do you need a sound system?

There are lots of reasons. For one, if you’re in a country where you’ll be learning a foreign language, listening to the radio is a great way to learn that language. Radio news broadcasts, foreign language music, and the banter of local DJs will all help you to learn the language faster.

Once you’ve obtained a stereo, it’ll also provide you with free entertainment. As an exchange student, you’ll probably have a fair bit more free time than you currently do at home. It’s also likely that you won’t be able to work and earn money while you’re overseas. This combination of lots of free time and not much money will require you to get creative about what you do in your spare time. On a per-hour basis, purchasing a small stereo and listening to music is one of the cheapest ways to entertain yourself.

4. A bike

OK, so this is something that you’ll definitely need to acquire once you get overseas, rather than taking it with you. But it’s such an essential and useful item that it should be right at the top of your exchange student bucket list.

Your host family should have an old bike that they can lend you. Otherwise, a decent second-hand bike will cost you a couple of hundred dollars up front.

Why are bikes so great? There are at least four reasons:

They give you mobility and freedom – It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to drive when you’re on exchange. However, a bike will be nearly as convenient as a car and will enable you to get to school, go shopping and visit friends when you want to (subject to your host family’s timetable, of course).
They are virtually free to operate – Once you have a bike, they cost virtually nothing to run. Unlike bus or train tickets, or travelling with a car, you can ride as far as you want, as often as you want, and it won’t cost you anything.
You can explore your host country – Unless your host family lives in the middle of the Australian desert, or somewhere in Siberia, there should be a few nearby towns that you can ride to and explore. If you find yourself in Europe, Japan, or another densely populated area, there will probably be dozens of new places that you can ride to easily.
Cycling – especially off-road – is a blast – Cycling is one of the world’s most popular pastimes for one main reason: it is a hell of a lot of fun. Riding on paved roads and bike paths is fun because of the speed involved. Even riding a bike at 20 km/h feels much faster than driving a car at the same speed. Mountain biking – riding at speed through forests and on trails – is even more fun. During the course of your time as an exchange student, riding a bike can go from being a means of transportation to being a genuine hobby.

5. A smartphone with a high-resolution camera

As part of your preparations for going on exchange, you may be tempted to spend a few hundred dollars on a new camera so that you can take photos of all of the new and interesting places you’ll visit.

On the one hand, you might consider spending up big on a new digital SLR camera, which will allow you to take super high-quality photos of your travels. On the other, you may consider that a compact, digital camera is the better way to go.

Actually, neither of these options is particularly good. The SLR will be too heavy and bulky to carry around with you on your travels. I’d also advise against spending big money on a camera which could easily get lost, stolen or damaged. A small digital camera will have its own limitations. Image quality is unlikely to be great, and you still run the risk that the camera will be lost or stolen. If it’s a while since you’ve downloaded your photos – for example, because you’re in the middle of a long holiday – your photos will be lost.

There is a better way. Instead of purchasing a new camera, I recommend spending $2-300 upgrading your mobile phone. The phone should have a camera with at least 12 megapixel quality, if not somewhere in the mid to high “teens”.

The picture quality most likely won’t be any worse than a comparably-priced compact camera, and the phone will most likely be smaller and lighter. The real advantage of using your phone’s camera is that you can set the phone to upload your photos to Google Drive, OneDrive, Instagram and so on, as soon as you take them. This means that if your phone gets lost or damaged – which unfortunately happens quite frequently while you’re travelling – all of the photos of your once-in-a-lifetime travels will be safely tucked away in the cloud.

Can you think of any other essential items for exchange students to take or acquire when they go on exchange? Please leave a comment below.

Good luck, Matt

August 8, 2016May 31, 2017

How exchange students can make a good first impression

Abraham Lincoln noted that a reputation is like fine china – once broken, it is very hard to repair.

The same is true of first impressions. Once you’ve made a bad impression on someone else, it can take a lot of time and effort to undo that damage and change the way he or she thinks about you. Make a good first impression, however, and that person will usually remember and think about you in a positive way – even if you subsequently have a few “off” days.

Why do you need to make a good first impression?

How exchange students can make a good first impression — Flickr/Quinn Dombrowski

As an exchange student, you’ll meet many new people during the course of your exchange.

You need to make a good first impression on every one of those people.

Why?

Well, for starters, you’re basically starting your life from scratch in a new country, and will have no friends to start with. People will generally only want to hang out with you if you seem like a good person to hang out with. If you come across as friendly, uncomplicated and open, you’ll attract new friends. If you come across as unpleasant, self-centred and negative, you won’t. Unless you want your friend counter to be stuck on zero for twelve months, you have to prove to others that you are worthy of their friendship.

Second, the number of people you’ll be seeing on a regular basis and who are potential friends is actually quite small – maybe in the vicinity of 50 or 60 people. You’ll see your host family or families, your class mates, other exchange students, and that’ll be about it. No work friends. Probably very few sport or co-curricular friends. Not as many friends-of-friends or extended family members as you may be used to at home. The bottom line is that your pool of potential friends is quite limited. You can’t afford to turn too many of them off by acting badly, simply because there aren’t that many of them to start with.

Third, the blunt truth is that being friends with an exchange student is harder than being friends with a normal person. People need to speak slower so that you can understand them. You’re only going to be there for a limited time. Because everything is new to you, you may need a bit of hand-holding, even in relation to simple things like buying a bus ticket. People need to be assured that the extra effort they’ll make in being your friend is worth it. That may sound mercenary, but it’s true.

General tips for making a good first impression

First impressions Norway — Flickr/Vidar Flak

Having gone on at length about how your exchange is doomed if you don’t make a good first impression on others, it’s my sad duty to tell you that most people aren’t very good at it.

I sure wasn’t before I went on exchange.

However, here’s the good news:

Making a positive first impression on others is actually a skill that you can practise and become proficient at. You just need to understand a few basics.

Greetings

People tend to read a lot into the way you greet them. They can take offence at things that seem trivial if you aren’t aware of them, like the firmness of your handshake.

So, play it safe, and do all of the following when greeting someone for the first time:

Be sure to smile. If you don’t feel like smiling – for example, because you’re stepping off a 24-hour flight from Sydney – fake it till you make it, and smile anyway.
Shake hands if appropriate and make eye contact while doing so.
Be sure to introduce yourself, ask the person you are meeting his or her name, and tell that person that you are pleased to meet him or her.
If the person you are meeting for the first time is older than you, consider addressing him or her with the title “Mr” or “Mrs” or their foreign-language equivalents.
If you are on exchange to a country in which a foreign language with a formal and informal voice is spoken, don’t forget to use the formal voice when addressing that person – for example, vous in French or Sie in German.

Names

Something else to remember is that it is generally considered polite to address someone using their name, including people you’ve just met.

In certain countries, including Switzerland, it is considered rude to greet your acquaintances without using their names. If you see your friend Thomas in Switzerland, you need to greet him with “Hi Thomas” instead of just saying “Hi”.

Even if you aren’t in a host country with such a cultural rule, if you know someone’s name, including where you have just been told that name, use it when greeting him or her.

One of my colleagues at law school had a reputation for being a friendly and outgoing person. He seemed to have a prodigious ability to remember the names of people he’d met. I eventually learned that he had a notebook that he used to carry around. Every time he met someone new, he’d write down their name and a few key details, and commit those to memory.

Was that kooky?

Sure. But he kept it a secret, so no-one knew. What people did know was that he remembered the names and something about nearly every one of his 300 classmates, and was extremely likeable as a result.

If you aren’t great at remembering names, or just want to make a good impression, I recommend his kooky-but-effective notebook method.

Making conversation

You can make a good first impression by being an easy and enjoyable person to talk to. If people like talking to you the first time, they’ll most likely want to talk to you again.

Don’t worry if you aren’t a natural conversationalist. Probably only 10% of people are. Again, the rest of us are faking it until we make it.

The truth is that making conversation is a skill that you can easily learn. There are really only four things you need to remember:

People love talking about themselves. If you keep the conversation focussed on the other person, and don’t talk about yourself too much, the other person will most likely enjoy talking to you, and want to talk to you again. Keeping the conversation focused on the person you’re talking to is also very easy: just ask that person lots of questions, and show genuine interest in his or her answers. Don’t ask questions in a stalkerish, third-degree kind of way, but in a way which shows that you are interested in what the other person has to say
There are some things that nearly everyone is interested in. You can default to those if you can’t think of anything else to talk about. For example, nearly everyone likes music of some kind. Nearly everyone is interested in travelling. Nearly everyone has been to the movies in the last month or so. Nearly every male has some interest in sport and cars. And so on.
Steer clear of discussions about politics, religion, or money. If music, sport and travel bring people together, money, religion and (especially) politics drive people apart. Those topics polarise people and you can easily make others think you’re pushing a political or religious agenda. Avoid them if you can.
Keep things light-hearted and positive. Don’t dwell on the negatives of your host country, or make unfavourable comparisons between your host country and your home nation.

As an exchange student, you’ll find that you develop a little “getting to know you” conversation routine because of the sheer number of new people you’ll be meeting all the time. As an exchange student, my unwritten routine of questions when meeting a new person looked something like this:

I would introduce myself and find out the other person’s name
The other person would usually ask where I was from, and I would tell them I was Australian
I would ask whether they had been to Australia, or travelled abroad, themselves. If we had both travelled to the same country, I would ask where and ask how the person had liked certain places or experiences.
I would ask where the other person was from – ie, whether they were born in the area or whether they had moved there from elsewhere in the host country.
I would ask what the other person did in his or her free time.
I would ask the other person whether he or she followed any sports.
I would ask the other person what sort of music he or she liked.

Your routine, when you develop it, will probably look quite similar.

Dress – the “adding one level of neatness” rule

People you meet for the first time whilst on exchange will think better of you if you’re dressed well and your appearance is neat and tidy.

A small hack to make a good first impression based upon your appearance is to dress one level “neater” than everyone around you. For example, if people at the school you attend in your host country generally wear jeans and a t-shirt to school in summer, wear jeans and a polo. If they wear jeans and a polo, wear jeans and a button-up shirt. By only taking it up one level of neatness, you won’t look too preppy. But you will look well-dressed, and make a good impression.

There is also a range of situations in which you will need to dress more conservatively in order to make the right first impression. These are:

Situations where the people you’ll be meeting are mostly aged in their 50s and above
Any time where you are giving a speech or presentation in front of a group
Times when you are meeting with high-ranking or important people – for example, your school principal, senior people within your exchange organisation, your local mayor or politicians from the area in which you’re being hosted

Making a good first impression on your host family

Exchange Students - Making a good impression on your host family — Flickr/Malte Kopfer

Your relationship with your host family is easily the most important relationship you’ll have as an exchange student. You need to get that relationship off to the best possible start.

Show that you’re willing and ready to fit in

You can make a good first impression with your host family by showing that you are ready to fit in as a member of the family. This means:

asking – preferably on day one – about your host family’s household routine. What time do they get up in the morning? What time do they go to bed at night? What are their arrangements for laundry, cleaning, ironing, and so on? Is there anything you can do to help around the home? Once you know the answer to these questions, try to fit in with that routine like any other member of the family.
finding out about your host family’s rules regarding lights-out time, the time they expect you home at night, internet use, use of their land-line phone, alcohol consumption, and whether you can have friends over to visit, and then abiding by those rules, from day one. These are some of the top “friction” points between host families and exchange students, and you need to learn your host family’s rules, and stick with them, from day one.
accepting invitations from your host family to go out, participating in family activities, and generally going along with the family’s agenda and movements. The deal with being an exchange student is that you will integrate into your family’s existing routine, rather than your family adjusting that routine to suit you.
limiting the amount of time you spend by yourself in your bedroom, and maximising the time you spend around your host family. Even sitting watching TV or reading a book in the family room while the family circulates around is a better way to build a relationship with them than holing yourself up in your room, alone.

Show that you’re serious about your exchange

Your host family will have an emotional stake in the success of your exchange. If you do well as an exchange student, your host family will feel that they have contributed to that success. If you don’t do well as an exchange student, they will feel partly responsible for your failure.

From the outset, then, you can make a good impression on your host family by demonstrating that you know what you need to do to have a successful exchange, and are prepared to do it. You can do this by:

Taking school seriously – including by attending full time, doing your homework, and otherwise participating in school life enthusiastically
Diligently studying the language of your host country, if you are in a country where you’re required to learn a new language
Showing from the outset that you are willing to adapt the culture and customs of your host country, and
Meeting any requirements of your exchange program

For more information on what will be expected of you as an exchange student, see my article on what you can expect as an exchange student.

Show that you are interested in building a relationship with your host family

Most of all, the members of your host family will be looking for early confirmation that you are prepared to establish a meaningful relationship with them.

Your host family is opening its house to you and wants to welcome you as a member of the family. Your host parents have volunteered to be your guardians and closest adults for the duration of your exchange; your host siblings are prepared to be your de facto brothers or sisters. They have all probably been looking forward to your arrival.

From discussions with former host families, I know that it causes a great deal of pain and disappointment to a host family when an exchange student arrives and seems uninterested in spending time with them.

Building a meaningful, deep relationship with your host family is straightforward. Mostly, it’s a simple matter of spending time with them. That means accepting their invitations, spending plenty of time in the common areas of their house, chatting to them about their day at mealtimes, helping your host siblings with their homework if required, and helping your host parents with minor chores if asked.

Things that will get in the way of you establishing a good relationship with your host family include:

you spending too much time on the internet, social media or being preoccupied with your smartphone
you spending a lot of time on the phone or otherwise communicating with your family and friends at home
you spending a lot of time alone in your bedroom – especially with the door closed
you spending the majority of your time with other exchange students, and
you not learning the language of your host country

Take note of these “do”s and “don’t”s, and be sure to work on your relationship with your host family, from the outset.

Making a good first impression on your classmates

Exchange students - making a good first impression - school mates — Flickr/Denisbin

It’s also important to make a good first impression on your school classmates. After all, school is where you’ll be spending the majority of your time each day. You will make a good impression at school if your attitude, demeanour and behaviour make clear to people that:

You want to meet, and make friends with, as many people as possible, and
You want to fit in and be a normal member of your class and school communities

Meeting and befriending people at school

There will be multiple opportunities for you to meet your schoolmates during your first few weeks at school. You can get to know them whilst travelling to school if you are walking, riding a bike, or using public transport. You can get to know them in class and between classes. You can get to know them through school-based sport and co-curricular activities.

Make a big effort to go above and beyond these obvious opportunities. Once you make friends with someone, try to get to know that person’s friends, too. If you can do extra sport at lunchtime, or extra classes which will help you to mix with different people from your classmates, do that, too. Make it your mission to meet, and become friendly with, as many people as possible.

If you get invited to spend time with people – at lunchtime or after hours – accept the invitation. Be sure to smile and ask plenty of questions when you’re with those people, and thank them sincerely for inviting you. If your behaviour turns people off, you are unlikely to get a second invitation. Remember what Abe Lincoln said. You’ll only get one chance to make a good impression on these folks, so make it count.

Fitting in with your classmates

When you first arrive at your new school, you may be a bit of a celebrity.

As well as being a new student – which in itself usually makes people curious – the fact that you come from another country will give you added novelty value. People will most likely want to ask questions about your home country, comment about your accent, and generally make a bit of a deal about having someone from overseas at school with them.

This attention can be enjoyable. However, it is superficial and won’t last.

The best thing is for you to try to blend in with your classmates as quickly as possible. You’ll earn their respect and acceptance by attending every class with them – no cutting class – sitting up, paying attention and participating in lessons as much as possible.

If there is a way you can help your class – for example, by helping them in a subject in which you have particular expertise – you should do it.

Try to get a feel for the culture of your class, find out what your classmates are interested in, and generally get to know how everyone else ticks. Be chatty, positive and open.

The message you want to be sending to your school mates at all times is that you like them and that you want to be a part of the school, rather than someone who stands out.

Other exchange students

Finally, you should try to make as good a first impression as possible on other exchange students.

It’s in your interests to have as many friends as possible amongst your fellow exchange students. The friendships you make with them are likely to be one of the most enduring legacies of your exchange. Also, the reputation you earn amongst your exchange student peers will attach to your home country. You need to be a good ambassador for your home country whenever possible.

Be a good friend

Students in US Army schools have traditionally adopted the unofficial motto “cooperate and graduate”. Those students know that the more they help and support one another throughout the rigours of army training, the more likely they are to graduate successfully.

The golden rule amongst exchange students should be “help each other and thrive”. The truth is that being an exchange student can be very hard at times. Like those army officers in the US, the more exchange students help and support one another, the better their chances are of having a successful exchange.

Certainly, if there’s one thing you should do in respect of your fellow exchange students, it’s to be as helpful as possible. When it comes to new exchange students, share as much of your accumulated wisdom as possible. Help them with language issues, reassure them about any cultural or language problems, listen patiently to their gripes about school and host family – the usual things which are hardest to adjust to – and forgive any naïve behaviour. Encourage them to call you if they need a hand or someone to chat to. Call them for a talk every now and then, to make sure they are settling in OK.

The same goes for your more experienced fellow exchange students. Even exchange students who’ve overcome teething problems and know their way around appreciate having a confidante and friend who is experiencing the same things as them. Show that you’re willing to be such a friend.

Good luck,

Matt