A student slowly opens the door of her new school. As she begins to walk in, a realization hits her. She is miles away from home in a different country, leaving her friends and family far behind as she prepares to embrace a new culture. Starting a new life isn’t easy, especially at 16 years old, but a lasting impact can be left on a student who chooses to become a foreign exchange student. This was the case for Martina Marionni, an exchange student from Italy.  

   “I think this experience can be taken once in your life and when you are 16-17 years old I would recommend it to all of the students that haven’t taken it yet, but you have to keep an open mind to enjoy it fully,” Marionni said.

 Marionni first learned about the foreign exchange student program her freshman year of high school after hearing students being welcomed back after their year of being away as an exchange student.

  “I wasn’t really interested in it. I was too young and I couldn’t think to leave my family, my friends,and all I had built in my life, starting a new year, but I’ve always wished to learn English and then two years later one of my friends told me she was leaving to be an exchange student and she told me everything about it, so I was really excited to do it too,” Marionni said.

  Starting the process, Marionni didn’t get to choose what school she wanted to go to, but she did get to choose the country.

  “I just chose the U.S. because of the language that I wanted to learn and also because I’ve always been attracted and fascinated by the United States.”

   Marionni didn’t really have a hard time while moving because she was excited to start this new experience and felt welcomed by new family and friends. However, there are still difficulties that come up throughout the process of moving to a new country.

 “I think the most difficult thing is the language. In the beginning I was scared thinking about how my family would understand me and vice versa. You don’t know anything about here you are going to live for a year because you can search on the internet but it is not the same thing,” Marionni said. “You don’t know what people usually do, how people think, and you don’t know how to approach them in another language, but that is what drives you to build another life day by day.”

  Becoming a foreign exchange student comes with many difficulties for the student as well as their family and friends.

  “As my organization suggested to me, I don’t talk to my friends and family everyday because I’m concentrating on building my new life here, and it would be useless thinking about what my friends are doing in Italy because I’m not there.”

  Though there are many changes, the positive effects and lessons learned from this experience are ones that will be there for a lifetime. Students learn many tips to help them become more independent and many other things.

  “Mainly how to approach people with a totally different mentality from mine and using another language.” Marionni said. “Secondly I’ve always been responsible but sometimes my parents opinion is very important to me and here I’ve learned how to solve problems without their help and I’m still learning new things.”