Michelle chose to study in the USA

My name is Michelle and I am from the Netherlands. I am spending my exchange year in America in a place called American Fork, Utah.

Living with a host family

I really like my host family and they definitely make my experience in America better. We share a lot of the same interests, like soccer, sports, and baking. I go to a lot of soccer games from my host sisters and help my host dad with coaching his soccer teams.

I have done some amazing things with my host family. We have been in the mountains, to a college soccer game, to temples in Utah, to Christmas concerts and a Christmas light show.

It is definitely not the same as I am used to from the Netherlands, because I have 2 siblings and in America I have 5 host siblings. I am the youngest in the Netherlands and in America I am the oldest. That is a difference and that took me some time to adjust to, but I really like it now and they are like a second family to me.

School in my host country

The school I am going to is bigger than I was used to, so the first few weeks it was sometimes difficult to find my classes. I made some good friends in school and also other exchange students, which helps, because you can talk to them if there is something going on and they will probably understand it better than Americans. Every month we have a meeting with exchange students and American students during lunch and then we hear stories from other exchange students and that is really fun.

I have been to my first American Football game at my school and that was amazing and a great experience to have.
The teachers are all very interested in my story and what I think of America and Utah. They ask a lot of questions about it and I am not used to that from teachers in the Netherlands, but I like that.

Thanksgiving

I don’t have Thanksgiving in the Netherlands, so this was my first time celebrating Thanksgiving. We went to my host mother’s family and I was surprised how many people were there. There were something like 30 people, so it was really busy. It was my first time eating turkey and I liked it. After the eating we played Basketball, that is something they do during Thanksgiving to play sports, like Basketball or Football. There was a lot of pie and also Pumpkin pie and I didn’t even know what pumpkin tasted like, but that was really good. It was a very fun day and very fun to experience Thanksgiving.

Special things I have done in America

With a friend of mine, also an exchange student, I went to Lagoon, which is a theme park. That was one of the best days of my exchange experience. I didn’t really like going into roller coasters, but because of going there and going in almost everything I started to like it and it was an amazing experience.

I also joined a soccer team here. It is a rec team, but they are still pretty good and I really liked playing with them in the summer and I am looking forward to playing another season with them in April. It is good to join a sports team or something like that, so you can make friends there and have something fun you can do after school.

Find out more

• Read more student stories from the USA
• Read more about a high school exchange in the USA
• See all our high school exchange destinations