Greenfield's history of foreign exchange students

by Emily Ross and Ella Walston

---

At Greenfield, we have had several foreign exchange students on campus, including two students this year from Germany.

Our director of admissions, Mrs. Powell, organizes the program of foreign exchange students. She really likes having foreign exchange students here at Greenfield and said that it adds to our diversity; it’s good for us to meet other people from other cultures and get to know them.

Greenfield works with a company called Global Horizons, and throughout the application process, they make it very easy and quick for the host family to fill out forms, and to receive information about the student. The hardest part of the application process for her is finding a host family for the exchange student.

Germany is the most common country that we receive students from, but we have also had Danish and Thai students in the past.

Global Horizons accepts students of any age, but 10th and 11th grade students are most common because of the schoolwork in the United States versus their home countries. A big difference between the US and Germany, based on the view of Yanik, the Powell family’s foreign exchange student last year, is that Germans are more “closed”, and Americans are more “open,” meaning that in Germany, they didn’t have as much fun throughout their school day, or have conversations with teachers.

Overall, foreign exchange students can teach us a lot and can learn a lot from their experience.