Why go?

What are the benefits?

• Read what returning students say
• Read what their parents say

Here’s what we think you can get out of the process ...

 

• Fluency in the local language.

Getting good grades helps but speaking another language every day calls on a wide range of personal skills. If you do well, you’ll have trouble re­membering your English vocabulary when you come back. Your shiny new language will stay with you all of your life.

• Understanding of the culture that can only come from living in it every day.

You can visit another country as an older person but you will never be able to live it from the inside in this way at any other time of your life.

• A perspective on your life in New Zealand that can only be truly felt by having some dis­tance from it.

NZ may seem quite strange to you for a while when you return.

• A close family experience that you won’t forget.

It will give you a great perspective on your own upbringing. If things work out well, you will have a second family that you will know for the rest of your life. This is up to you, to the host family and chance. It can’t be predicted. Bonding with your host family is very important to the overall success of your exchange.

• New friends.

• A sense of confidence.

Parents and students often mention it. Sometimes it is only obvious when you think back on your experiences much later. Tertiary institutions know about it and most will recognise that students returning from a successful exchange experience are more balanced in their views and more certain of what they want and more purposeful in getting it. These benefits come from meeting challenges yourself and dealing with them effectively.

• Clarity about what comes next.

A proportion of our exchange students apply in their fi­nal year of high school in NZ because they aren’t ready to decide on a course of tertiary study. For many of these students, a gap year experience can bring certainty.