High School Host Student in JAPAN
In the fall of 2008, I had a foreign exchange student from Colombia in my 11th grade history class. At the end of class one day, our teacher asked the student to sit at the front of the room so we could ask him questions about his home country and his opinions of the United States. I became inspired by his experiences and decided that I wanted to study abroad myself. One of my friends and I decided that we would go abroad together. We were both taking Spanish in school and decided to go to a Spanish speaking country. We spent hours of free time after school doing research, but were never able to find a program within our price range. Soon enough, my friend dropped out of the search because decided she was too afraid of traveling to another country alone, but I was determined. Eventually, I was introduced to a summer study abroad program to Japan. It was still too expensive for me to afford, but I hoped I might have a chance at winning a scholarship and I was ecstatic when I dis