The new year 2022 has come, I am leaving with a group of friends from the city of love, Paris, we are heading by bus full of exhausted, but nevertheless happy people, to Germany, passing Brussels. During these adventures, everyone fulfilled their little dreams. Young, excited people sing songs in chorus, waiting for the next destination, and only I am sitting in the thought... I'm thinking what to do next after returning to Kazakhstan. After all, my exchange semester should end soon, and not all young and ambitious people, whom I am, want to stay in one place. On my return, going through all the options to continue exploring our vast world, since Europe has shown what a multicultural world it is, I came across all kinds of programs for students, including Work and Travel.

I have a golden rule, "if you see an opportunity- take it." And I follow this rule dutifully. Despite the fact that I, as an ordinary person, have a habit of breaking the rules and not keeping my words. And as you can see from where you see this story, my dear readers, I followed my rule this time too.

And so, let's figure out why Work and Travel? And what kind of experience do I want to get?

Firstly, I would like to point out that the program allows you to work in an English-speaking country. This is a great opportunity for guys whose profession is related to English, and even more so for future teachers like me. Language is an instrument of thinking. To handle the language somehow means to think somehow: inaccurately, approximately, incorrectly. Learning and knowing the structure of a language is one thing, it's another thing to speak and feel a language. When you try to speak correctly, follow language rules - this creates difficulties, and being in the environment with native speakers gives the person a huge bonus and removes those very barriers. In the process of working together you get used to live speech, remember the features of intonation and pronunciation, learn to distinguish different dialects. Moreover, knowledge of the language develops memory and thinking, enriches the inner world, helps to better understand the culture of native speakers. In addition, words that sound somehow in your language take on a different meaning in a foreign one.

Secondly, travel. As the name of the program itself says, the purpose of the program is to work and travel. Coming to travel and going back is a good and pleasant pastime, but the experience that I will describe to you now is much more interesting. Summer. You found friends from different countries, you have one common language, you worked and were a close-knit team, you spent a productive and most atmospheric summer in the country of Netflix, McDonalds, Apple, skyscrapers, baseball and capitalism, and then you go on a trip to the states that you dreamed of getting to since childhood on your hard-earned money. You have to admit, it sounds fascinating! When else in your life will you have such a chance?

Travel develops us. I'm sure you've heard it many times. So how does this manifest itself?

Before my exchange studies, I thought I was good at geography, and I was wrong. It turned out that I was confusing ordinary facts, and it was my arrival in Europe and the desire to visit every corner of it that helped me consolidate my knowledge about this culture. Now, I know which country borders on another, now I know the capitals of the Scandinavian countries, which I constantly confused, I can distinguish the architectural style of medieval cathedrals, and that Finnish is not a Germanic language at all, as I previously thought. I know facts that I would never have guessed to search on Google in my life, I know folk history from the stories of the citizens themselves. I thought I knew enough about America, because my generation grew up consuming American content. However, based on my experience, I know that I still have a lot to learn. In addition, it is an opportunity to show the world your people. Kazakhstan is a multinational country that is famous for its hospitality, Altai Mountains, night Almaty and talented rappers, however, many do not know what kind of people live in Kazakhstan. This is an opportunity to be an unofficial ambassador of your country.

And so, after listing reasons, I want to smoothly move on to what can be improved? What do future exchange programs look like?

The most important thing is to start with is that as a young girl, a student from Kazakhstan, I would like more exchange programs that could allow our students to see the world. Not all people can afford to study abroad and travel anywhere, and such programs give a chance to be realized at the beginning of the journey. They are needed and they should be available. Exchange programs allow you to expand your perception of the world, its scope and possibilities and understand what you like, where you feel good and who you would like to be...

In my first exchange history, I personally saw students who, by training together with European students on the same field, participating in pan-European competitions, won, thereby taking a step towards a dream career. Students who have discovered their love of languages by communicating with vendors at fairs, with waiters in restaurants or with random passers-by. And myself, who almost always maintained a neutral, or roughly speaking, passive position, suddenly planned a whole tour to Barcelona on my own, wanting to lead my friends. And then I discovered my leadership side, it's amazing.

Also, future exchange programs will cover different interests and have a wide choice. For example, it is easier for university students to go on an exchange than for college students. I believe that it is also important for students of secondary specialties to participate in exchange programs for the above reasons. If we involve all categories of young people in active, social life, then the quality of life and other important indicators of the standard of living will improve.

To draw to a close I would like to add important thoughts from the novel I read by Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451": "It doesn't matter what exactly you do, it's important that everything you touch changes shape, becomes not the same as before, so that a particle of yourself remains in it. This is the difference between a man just cutting grass on the lawn and a real gardener. The first one will pass, and it will not happen, but the gardener will live for more than one generation".

Thank you, my readers, for getting to the very end of my story! And remember, the goal is not a place, but a path leading to it, learn to look at the world differently.