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Dear Exchange Student, My name is Chris Kröner and I'm an exchange student myself and I'm a staff member of worldclub. How are you doing??? Great?? That's cool. I really hope you have a lot of fun this year. But then this page will not be really interesting for you.
This page is especially dedicated to the exchange students, who are not so lucky and happy.
Are you one of them?? I hope not, but if you feel bad, lonely, homesick or whatever,
don't get too frustrated. There's a lot you can do about this situation. There are so many other exchange students like you out there, who are not having
the expected perfect exchange year, if something like this even exists.
I have these times myself when you think: What the heck did I do and why did I come here?? You feel sooo
homesick and want nothing else than go home. You feel helpless, depressed and unloved. You feel lonely and lost
in a foreign country.
Please never ever get the idea you're an outcast or unnormal, just because not everything is going great and you
don't have a lot of friends or you feel homesick or have trouble with your host family.
Statistically, the majority of exchange students have some problems during their exchange year. So don't feel
alone with your problems. You are not. Most other exchangers have some kind of trouble, but that's normal.
And be honest: Did you really expect, that everything would go great and smooth, just like it did
in your home country??
You had the courage to undertake such a big adventure like this exchange. You are one of the few in your school,
city and even country, that qualified themselves for such a great thing like this exchange. YOU qualified,
because you were one of the few, that were considered strong enough and intelligent enough to handle the experience
and also the difficulties of such an exchange year. Everybody knows that it's not easy and believe me, a lot of
people admire you for having the courage to leave your home and your friends voluntarily to go to an unknown,
foreign country, to live with a new, unknown family with a new language. Be proud of that. Also see the positive
things in this exchange year. You gain an experience not compareable to anything else. You learn to speak a second
language nearly like your native tongue and you find a new family, that is willing to accept you like you are and to
consider you their new child. See also this aspect: These bad things now, make you extremely strong for the nasty things
in live, that might still lay ahead. And if you "survive" psychologically such a year, you are surely ready to handle the
future problems in life.
Try to see the good things in this exchange, and not only the bad things. Also see, that there are only
a few more months left, until you've "made it". Always keep in mind: You are not abnormal if you have problems.
It's more the other way round. If everything would go great you would be statistically abnormal. So think positive and
try to make the best out of your situation. Don't lock yourself in your room or cry yourself to sleep every night.
It won't get better from that. Go out, be open, try to meet people and (very important!!) don't hide your problems
completely, because you think you should not have any problems and are ashamed of them. Talk to your host parents,
to your area rep, to a good friend or to anybody you feel close to and tell them how you feel. Don't "eat" all the frustration. Express it
(but please in an appropriate way: No this country sucks, this family sucks, everything sucks type of expression!!). If you have no one to talk to or don't want to talk to anyone personally,
use my "Help" service. Write in the letterform and tell me your problems, vent your anger or just
say what you feel you have to tell somebody. I will keep everything confidential , so don't worry about this point.
It might interest you by the way, what the most common problems of exchange students are:
Chris |