whats the best country to be in exchange student in as a 17 year old american guy?
my choices are Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Denmark Egypt Finland Germany Ghana Greece Hungary India Japan Korea Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Russia Slovakia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Turkey Uruguay . criteria is i want freedom, cool girls, and to be able to communicate in english without having to only speak small talk.
Studying Abroad - 4 Answers
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1 :
I was a 17 year old guy in Switzerland and had a GREAT time. Almost everyone speaks English, plus several other languages. The country was beautiful, and the Swiss are very liberal with their young adults. I was there for the whole year, so I did have to function in German, but it wasn't required. Good luck with your choices...
2 :
you picked a lot of countries where you can't really get on just speaking english! japan and uruguay? thailand? brazil? lol... you'd definitely need to learn the language, either because english isn't all that common there, or because they don't care to use it and would rather use their own language (ie japan)!! i say don't worry so much about the language part... if you're going to study abroad for any worthwhile amount of time, you'll be able to pick up a language there and do fine. i did it! and it will look great on college apps if this is what you're doing before college. but otherwise, if you really want to be able to speak english all the time and more than just small talk, you've significantly narrowed down the number of countries you could study in. oh, and all countries have "cool girls," so i guess that depends on what you mean by cool? as in they go out and party? or they're intelligent and beautiful and you can pick them up on campus? and a huge part of study abroad IS freedom... however if you will be underage when you go, the rules may be different for you, for example if you're still in high school... so you'll have to check with the programs you're interested in and ask about that to know for sure. check out ciee.org for some good programs.
3 :
Most European countries have good English programs. Of course it varies (if you look at your foreign language class, I'm sure some kids do quite well and others can barely say a sntence, even thought they ahve taken the same classes). I am on exchange in Germany and when I arrived, I felt everyone spoke really good English. Then I realized everyone speaks English and a few people speak good English -- and it's the ones with good English who talked to me in English. The others COULD speak English, but were not very good and were quite nervous about speaking to a native English speaker (once I assured them all that my part of Canada does not speak French -- Germans know Canada speaks French and English but many haven't got much of an idea as to WHERE). However, that said, I have several friends from South America who speak English fluently. Not PERFECTLY, but I can talk to them just like I talk to native English speakers. Their mistakes are only little things, like saying 'swimmed' instead of 'swam' now and then. But a foreign exchange isn't about speaking English in a non-English speaking country. It's about learning a new language; a lot of programs will not be happy if you are not learning the language. It's okay to speak English at the start (I would have no friends if I no one had spoken English to me), but one of the huge points of exchange is to learn a language if you go to a country where the language is not your native one. I was sort of not-dating this guy and while most of the reason for our not-break up was other stuff, part of it was he spoke English to me, and how was I supposed to learn any German if I started dating a guy who spoke English to me? But I digress. South America is good for partying. Europe too, but a different culture. Funny enough, I feel like the 'Canadian' parties I went to seem 'wild' here, when they were just normal parties. But Germans don't do the 'liquor in one hand, chase in the other, out at night around a bonfire (or in a house in winter) with the smell of weed in the air' thing. It took me awhile to get that when I went to a 'party' with someone, I should not except something at a house or anything, but rather something where ID is checked, money to get in is paid, there's a DJ, and drinks are sold (kinda like a school dance, minus teachers/rules and with alcohol). Plus all the girls get dressed to kill and put on their most uncomfy shoes. It's fun, but different from home. And as an exchange student, it's not hard to get attention. I'm a girl so I guess it's different, but I end up getting a lot of free drinks -- which is cool with me! Freedom is going to depend on where you live (is it safe? can you get around easily?) and your family (do they have strict rules?) and to a smaller degree, your program. I am with Rotary and some of my friends nearby are not allowed to go to Köln (Cologne) for Karneval* because it's "too dangerous". (* Basically 5 days of drinking in costumes, as I understand it, and apparently a very very big deal as people have been mentioning it since I arrived here. They all put on "poor you" faces when i say we don't have it in Canada.)
4 :
If you want something completely different from back home, go to Ghana. English is the official language but when will you ever have an opportunity to live with an African family? Ghana is a beautiful country with great beaches, and stunning nature with lots of big animals - elephants, hippos, lions, leopards, many types of monkeys and birds. Plus any family that can take in a student is going to be a wealthy family so you wont be living in a hut with no toilet, youll probably have maids and drivers and cooks. And Ghanaian girls are gorgeous. India would also be very interesting. You could go to Europe at any time but somewhere like India or Ghana would really be a change
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