Hallo TASTE Team,
My name is Philip H. I was one of your exchange students this year and I want to share my experience with you at least the short version: My year was amazing, the best year of my life.
When I arrived at the Pittsburgh airport everything was new for me and I knew that from now on a new part of my life has started. My host mom picked me up at the airport that day and we drove home. It was a long and quit drive, because I was so excited and couldn’t talk that much in English yet.
The first month especially was really hard for me to understand them and to talk in English the whole time. Also to get along with the family and the other exchange student from Thailand. But everything got better, because after a month I got more confident in talking in English so that the relationship between me and my host family got better and better.
My first day of school was already so different to school in Germany. Everyone was helping me too in my classes and I was starting to make new friends. My classes were so different to German School. The first semester I had History, Recreational Sports, Video and TV Production and Algebra. The second semester I had English, Chemistry, Photography and International Graphics. All of these classes were amazing and also all the teachers were really kind. All in all my school year in the U.S. was amazing and really exciting.
In this whole year I learned a lot of things like being more independent, English and a lot more. I have a second family now what I’ve never would have thought. I had a lot of fun with my American family and it was also really nice that I lived with another exchange student in the same house.