France

Each student has a unique and individual experience on their Experiment program. The following essay is a single glimpse into a program from one student's perspective.

Janice Kim -- French Alpine Adventure (FRHA)

A Summer Like No Other

My name is Janice Kim and for 17 years of my life I have lived in America, sheltered, believing myself to have had an accurate perception of the world from my interactions with different types of people. Yet I couldn't have been more wrong.

France has changed my life in very obvious and subtle ways, which is why I shall always remember it. It has made me a stronger person, which sounds cliché, but I am dead serious when I say it. I have never ever done the things that I have had to do during this trip, such as river rafting, mountain climbing, rock climbing, mountain biking, and hiking for 12 hours. It was strenuous physically and sometimes mentally, but it has done me so much good. Me, a New York girl whose only "outdoor experience" was going hiking for 2 hours up a flat trail, doing all these things made me realize the depth of my reservoir of strength.

Then the homestay. Amazing. My family was the sweetest and kindest group of people I could have ever met and living with them has made me open my eyes to the differences in our two countries. My host family is proud of their country, but they are not the haughty people that stereotypes paint the French to be. They are well versed in the geography of their country, which made me feel ashamed because I don't know all 50 states' locations in my own country, and they are celebrating the culture of France. I loved to live where they lived, eat what they ate, and breath the air that smelled of the fresh mountains. It was like heaven to me compared to the busy, noisy, cement and concrete forest I live in.

But it wasn't only France that touched me in many ways but my American group as well. We were a close group and everyone was very down to earth, a quality that I was extremely thankful for. We became a family so to speak, watching out for each other and always doing our best to cheer one another up, always giving a helping hand. Our group leader was wonderful too, which was what made the trip even more special and meaningful for me personally because he was always telling us how important it was not to make judgments but observations. He helped me really open myself up to everything I had faced. Our group is still tight even after the trip. I hope to stay friends with them for a very long time.

Lastly, our group was able to touch someone else's life in a positive manner. She was our hiking guide and we all loved her to death. She was funny and down to earth and like a mother to us. The four days we spent with her could have been 10 weeks based on how close we became with her. On the last day together with her she told us, with tears in her eyes, that she had worked with Americans before for 3 years but it was our group that inspired her to want to travel to America to work with other students like us. That really touched me since it showed me that the trip and the Program itself was fulfilling what it had set out to do ߞ change the world, one friendship at a time.