- That is the number of countries in the world today. Two hundred and fifty-one destinations and two hundred and fifty-one opportunities to change your life, to bring something new and exciting into it.
Currently, there are many ways to explore these two hundred and fifty-one destinations. For example, you can go on a short trip or an excursion, or you can simply open social media and read articles or watch videos about the places you are interested in. However, there is a way that will allow you not only to see beautiful views, taste the cuisine, and get to know the people of the country you like, but also to fully immerse yourself in the world you dream about. And that way is youth travel and student exchange programs.
I have known about exchange programs since my school days, thanks to my social circle.
Rumors spread like a game of telephone. One day I came to school, and everyone was talking about a girl from a parallel class (let's call her Ksyusha) who had almost moved to another country for good. At first, I thought she was just traveling with her family again, but her sisters kept attending classes, so it was clearly not that. Asking her sisters was a lost cause: they were excellent at keeping secrets. So, all that remained was to wait for news from Ksyusha herself.
In general, when I was in school, the main titan of social media in post-Soviet countries was VKontakte. And besides phone calls, the only way to find out about people's lives was through posts and statuses. And it was thanks to the news feed that I found out one day where Ksyusha was and what she was doing. One of the posts contained a detailed story about how she ended up in Sweden – that is how I learned about the existence of exchange programs.
It was as if a new world had opened up for me. I realized that countries can be explored not only superficially by just going on a trip, that they are not limited to their most famous tourist spots and landmarks photographed from bus windows, and that to get to know the people of a country, it is not enough to just talk to a tour guide. I realized that to truly feel the culture, the residents, and the life of the country itself, you can immerse yourself in it from the inside, becoming just as much a part of it as millions of other people. And exchange programs can help with exactly that.
If you ask me now what exchange programs mean to me, I will answer that it is a chance to get something new and change the old. It is like a switch: at first, you just live for today and that is enough for you, and then 'click' – and you realize that everything can be different.
Gathering bits of information from Instagram posts, YouTube videos, and other corners of the web, I formed an idea of what I would like to get from participating in a program:
First is experience. Participating in an exchange program is truly a one-of-a-kind, extraordinary experience. It is not something you can participate in every day or whenever you just feel like it. These are very inspiring, vivid impressions and a unique opportunity to learn something new. It is unlikely that this experience can be repeated or compared to anything else.
Second is people. I like people in general; they can motivate and inspire on their own. But people are also the calling card of any country, its face. It is thanks to people that the impression of everything is formed in the first place. Communicating with locals helps you fully integrate into the country's culture and allows you to see it as it is, without embellishment. It is also a good opportunity to make new friends and new acquaintances.
Third is tourism. Of course, what is it without the beauty of nature and landmarks? Thanks to exchange programs, you can walk through picturesque places in the country, try its national cuisine, visit museums and theaters—in short, do everything you would do if you were coming to the country as a regular tourist.
Fourth is knowledge. Exchange programs allow students to study subjects of interest at the best universities in the world. Studying in another country with different perspectives provides very useful academic experience. You will have to face a different kind of competition, which will force you to evaluate yourself and the knowledge provided by universities in your home country differently. Also, a different learning atmosphere will motivate you to treat the information you receive in a completely different way.
Fifth is language. Immersion in a natural environment helps to improve language proficiency much faster and more effectively than reading books with a pile of rules that have nothing to do with a real understanding of the language and the people who speak it. It is almost impossible to do this fully in your own country, as at home and at work, with family and friends, we speak our native language, and without having such an opportunity abroad, the brain will adapt itself, gradually getting used to another language. After all, life is not the same without a foreign language.
Sixth is personal growth. Participating in an exchange program forces you to grow up. For most participants in such programs, this is the first time they are truly alone, away from loved ones and home, and this stress of forced solitude should not be underestimated. They are taken out of their comfort zone and forced to cope with the situation (by the way, this is a bit like living in a dorm, heh). Therefore, this experience helps you learn to act independently, manage yourself and your life, make decisions, and take responsibility for them. And such conditions also provide an opportunity to spend more time with yourself, get to know yourself better, and think about many things in your life.
But mainly, I think that exchange programs can really help my career.
My name is Karina, and I am a chemist. Since my school days, I have been attracted to this wonderful science. Upon entering the university, I dreamed of going to another country where chemistry in its various directions is developing on a much larger scale. Every chemistry student has heard such loud names as Shimadzu (Japan), Agilent technologies, Ecolab, and Thermo Fisher Scientific (USA), Bayer and BASF (Germany). I am sure that the names of some of these companies have been heard not only by chemists but also by people completely far from it in their line of work. Objectively speaking, the level of knowledge that our universities provide is not enough for the development of chemical science and its production sector in Belarus. Therefore, I have always wanted to listen and see for myself how chemical sciences are taught at universities in Germany, the USA, and Japan, and if possible, become a part of this global chemical industry.
Now, after graduating from the university, I am working off my free education at a customs laboratory. My expectations, unfortunately, did not quite coincide with reality even after completing my industrial and pre-graduation internships at the laboratory. I want more. Therefore, exchange programs are of great interest to me.
I understand that there are probably some 'pitfalls' as well. On the one hand, it seems that exchange programs only bring benefits. But disadvantages can be found everywhere. First, it is simply expensive. It does not happen that high-class training and magical impressions and experience accidentally turn out to be free, and we are talking about reality. Nevertheless, the possibility of part-time work in some exchange programs allows you to recoup previous expenses to a greater extent. Second, distance. When you live with your loved ones and friends for most of your life, separation from them becomes a big problem. However, there is an adaptation period for this. Over time, the longing for home and loved ones dulls, which is also helped by new acquaintances and new activities. Third, the mentality of the host country can be radically different from the usual one. And even if these differences are critical and fundamental, if you make the decision to go to such a country, you are essentially signing up to live by its rules, not trying to mold other people to fit you, but adapting yourself independently.
Personally, for me, a significant disadvantage of exchange programs is the age criterion. Exchange programs are mainly aimed at schoolchildren and university students who have not yet really decided what they are going to do in their lives. But for people like me, who have only recently finished their studies and are dissatisfied with the current situation, there are not many opportunities to go to another country for study or an internship, so you have to try ten times harder to achieve what you want.
Summing up, I don't know what our world will be like in twenty years, let alone fifty. The world is changing, and all these changes are often unexpected but always inevitable, to which one simply has to adapt or, conversely, change everything to suit oneself as much as possible. And along with the world, exchange programs are also improving, their formats, their scales, the directions of their development, but one thing remains unchanged: such programs allow you to discover the world... and discover yourself to the world!