by Aadil Fahim, YES India to USA 2007

I read somewhere “Exchange year is not just one year of life, but life in one year”. This quote can be only understood by those who have been an exchange student and have experienced the world different from their own.

Well, in my opinion, exchange students are people with special power. When they arrive to their host country, they are shy and nervous, but by and by, when they adjust themselves with the ambiance and get aware of the surroundings, they start to enjoy each and everything that the host country has to offer. They become more congenial, fun to hang out with, very outspoken, confident, acceptable, matured, amicable, amiable and culturally aware, and become a center of attraction for everyone. I will run out of adjectives if I’ll keep on defining the behavior and characteristics of exchange student once they start to embrace the culture and welcome the host country.

I’m very certain that exchange student have this unique power which makes them different from a normal person. They have the tendency to make anything and everything interesting with their funny accent, pronunciation, different dressing style, way of presenting anything and in the end, by bringing their own culture to their host and creating amalgamated version of something unique and full of fun.

Fun is engraved in their DNA. Every exchange student seeks to have fun and enjoy their exchange year. They find differences, they learn, they ask silly questions, they answer many questions, they clear the prejudices and stereotypes, they make others aware that a country by this name exists.

I was an exchange student too; I was hosted in a small city, Geneva, which is situated in Illinois, USA; two-hour commutes from Chicago by train. When I first came to know that I was hosted in Geneva, I wondered, why I am going to Switzerland when I applied for a scholarship to USA. I googled and found out that there are more than one Geneva.  Silly! Eh?

During my year in the States, I saw snow for the first time, learned guitar from my host brother, watched so many American movies, made gazillions of friends, learnt about my country, explored my talents, learnt to appreciate my culture, tasted so many cuisines, played different sports, learnt a foreign language, became member of a happy family, learnt everything by experiencing, and had pragmatic view towards the world just by living in an only one country. If I sit down and write, I will run out of pages. There are myriads of things I learnt during my exchange year. I experienced a robust and amazing life in a year which can’t be compared to anything and can’t be experienced in a life-time.

Exchange students have a tendency to bring change in the world by working at the grass root level. With their unlimited knowledge and great sense of humor, they create peace and remove the prejudicial thoughts and bring people under one roof. They are the good-will ambassadors bitten by the learning virus which makes them want to learn more and more by experiencing and still feel interested in it. Every good thing about being an exchange student and experiencing a life-time opportunity makes me feel proud to be an exchange student. “