Q: What made you decide to want to experience being a foreign exchange student?

A: My mom was here at Hayes thirty years ago as an exchange student so she told me all about that and I got crazy over the idea that I could go somewhere else to school.

Q: How did you reach out to get to do this opportunity?

A: My school asked us if we wanted to do but in the end we all needed to do it ourselves, so I went to an organization and asked if it was possible.

Q: How long will you be in Delaware?

A: I’m here for 10 months so I came here before school started and my flight is in June.

Q: What’s the biggest change living here, or just in the U.S. in general?

A: Probably the language, its okay after some months. In the first few days it was weird but it’s fine at the school.

Q: What’s different about school in the US and school in Austria?

A: School systems are so different here. We can’t choose our classes and you’re stuck with the same people in  a classroom so all of the teachers are traveling around and you’re sitting with about twenty people in one classroom everyday for years so you know exactly those people and no one else. Here, you travel around and I know way more people which is really weird and I was struggling with names the first few weeks. We get a fixed schedule and everyone does the same thing, the only thing you can choose is if you wanted to do Spanish or French or something.

Q: What do you like most about Hayes?

A: That you have sports in school. We don’t have a single sport in school so when you want to do a sport you need to go to a special school now here everyone does something and that’s way more fun.

Q: What activities have you been involved in at Hayes?

A: I did golf in the summertime. I do the musical right now. I wanted to do ski club, but it was not possible with the musical.

Q: Would you recommend this experience to anyone who might be interested?

A: Definitely, it’s so much fun and you’ll learn so much about different things. Yes, you hear a lot about America and see all the movies, it’s kind of like that but it’s also very different, living here is awesome.

Q: What do you miss about home in Austria?

A: What I really miss about home is subways, I’m living in a city with almost 3 million people and here it’s a small town without any public transportation and need a car to get places. Also, we are allowed to drink when we turn sixteen, so here nobody does anything like that which was weird at the beginning. The school is I think stricter. There’s a dress code, where we don’t have a dress code at home in school. Some rules are interesting to learn.