By Fionna Regalia & Alder Jakovac

The opportunity to study abroad can be an enticing idea for many students. Often, it is regarded as a way to see the world, experience a new culture, and create unique memories while still receiving an education. However, the details of study abroad programs can vary depending on whether it is done in high school or college. In order to determine which experience is more worth it, we decided to interview Sevada Calvino, a senior at Mendocino High School that went abroad last year, and Arista Regalia, a UC Santa Cruz student that went abroad this year. We learned about the many differences in the experience that are dependent on when the program takes place in an educational career.

As a first look into high school study abroad programs, we scheduled an interview with Sevada Calvino. In the second semester of her junior year, she flew to Italy to begin a six-month study abroad program. Sevada stayed with a homestay family in Laveno Mombello, a town on the side of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy. At first, she was heavily limited in freedom, as her homestay family was hesitant to allow an extreme amount of independence until they were confident she could navigate safely alone. In juxtaposition, Arista, who went on a 4 month long exchange program to Edinburgh, Scotland, during the fall semester of this year, lived in student accomodation, which is the apartment-style dorm housing available to college students in the UK. She had a few roommates, all of which attended the University of Edinburgh with her. She told us she had many freedoms; she could do almost anything she pleased, due to the fact she is legally an adult.

Sevada said school in Italy was very different than high school in America. Sevada went to a school with about 2,000 students, but instead of switching classrooms every period like we do in America, Sevada and her classmates stayed in one classroom the entire day. Sevada also mentioned the teaching style was very different. In America we typically do projects and use our creativity, but in Italy, it was about taking notes and memorizing the content. In Sevada’s words the teaching style was “lecture, take notes, take a test.” Arista also contrasted the teaching styles of Scotland and the United States, telling us that her classes taken abroad consisted of less busy work and more independent studies, such as reading. She also stated that she learned “a decent amount,” even though “it’s easy to be distracted by all the exciting new things in life.”

Sevada also mentioned there was difficulty in the beginning of her abroad program due to the language barrier. She told us the story of her first day of school where her teacher called her up to the front of the classroom and asked her to solve a calculus problem, but her teacher was explaining how to do the problem in Italian and Sevada did not understand. When she could not solve the equation, her teacher and the rest of her classmates laughed at her and called her “stupid American.” As Sevada became more fluent in Italian, life became easier for her. Since Arista went to Scotland, she lucked out and didn’t have to worry about the struggle of learning a new language because the language of Scotland is English. There was no language barrier that impeded her studies, but she noted that sometimes the accent could be difficult to decipher. Of course, college students could run into a language barrier depending on where they go, but waiting till college could give students more time to learn the language.

On the downside, when returning to America, Sevada found it very difficult to transfer her credits. In fact, when we spoke with most of the students that went abroad last year, there was a general consensus that Mendocino High School was not very supportive of their students going abroad. It seemed the school did not want students going abroad. Some of the students that went abroad last year transferred to the Community School because they are a lot more supportive of students going abroad and it’s often easier to transfer your credits. As Sophie Barrett told us, “the Comm school supports [her] in everything [she does].”

Arista stated that upon returning to the States, her credits were easy to transfer, and she received upper-division elective credits for some of the Earth Science classes she had taken. Arista said that outside of her academics, she had a lot of freedom, and discovered that she truly loved living in the city of Edinburgh. Overall, she described her choice to study abroad as “the best decision [she had] ever made,” and she plans to attend grad school there in the fall of 2019.

When observing the general abroad experience from an outside perspective, it seems that students interviewed are very pleased with their choice, despite the quality of their learning experience abroad. Traveling allows for many experiences that can only be found through seeing the world, especially in such a formative chapter in life. While we only talked to two students, there are quite a few differences in their experiences. From what we learned, we feel it would a lot easier to study abroad in college. You get more freedom and independence, plus your credits are easily transferable. If you really want to study abroad during high school, we recommend preparing yourself to work very hard to make up all the credits you missed, and maybe transferring to the Community School.