what exchange students don't tell you

During my exchange year, I had a surgery, and here are the photos of that surgery. When it comes to exchange, there is something that most of the exchange students don't tell you, so today I'm gonna spill all of the tea about student exchange.

Hi guys, it's me, Jody. Today we're gonna talk about my exchange year. Even though we're like 255k family, I don't really talk about my personal things, and whenever I talk about my personal things, people really enjoy it. So today, here we are. I'm going to talk a little bit about my exchange. My exchange year was wild, but before talking about the wild stories, let's talk about the program itself.

So this video is not sponsored at all, but why? If you're down to sponsor me, please sponsor me. I went to exchange to Germany, to be specific, to Berlin for six months. They had two options: a whole year and then six months, but I was too late to apply for a whole year exchange. So I decided to apply for a six-month exchange. I went to exchange with a program called YFU, Youth for Understanding, but there were so many friends of mine who went there with AFS and other exchange programs. I mean, I don't have any bias about the exchange programs, but people who went with YFU were pretty satisfied with it. You can give it a shot, so would I recommend it? Yes.

Let's talk about the application process. Who can go to exchange? Your application process differs from country to country. In Turkey, for students who are going to exchange from Turkey, the application process was really basic. You can literally choose whatever country you want to go, and there are some documents that they want. Some countries need like a language certificate in order to go to that country, so you gotta take that certificate, etc. But really, the first, it really depends on your home country as well. I talked with my YFU Japan friends, and the application process is much more complicated than YFU Turkey, so it really differs. I can't really say anything, but when it comes to YFU Turkey, it's really chill. You can literally pick wherever you want to go.

And you can go also. When it comes to the money, there are scholarships. I went to Germany, and for Germany, there was a scholarship which one of my best friends got. They give like a pretty high scholarship. If you are worried about the money, you can apply for the scholarship, so apply for a scholarship. But when it comes to six-month exchange programs, like I did, there is no scholarship, so be careful for that.

So now, let's talk about the exchange. Student exchange, even though it seems like super fun, super cool, all day partying, not really studying at all and stuff, it's not the truth. It's actually really hard. The feeling of being alone, being away from your home country, from your home culture, and being in a country and culture that is totally different from you is really difficult, especially if you're not mixed or if you're not an immigrant who grew up in a different culture. It's going to be much harder for you.

For me, I always experience cultural differences. In Japan, I'm a foreigner; in Turkey, I'm a foreigner. There is no home for me. I always feel alone, which sounds really sad, but it's the truth. If you're an immigrant child or if you're a mixed kid, you probably experienced that. When you go to another country, they don't accept you. If you go to another country, they say that they're like the other country, so there will be always someone else that's going to discriminate you. That's how I grew up. Even though I felt this discrimination when I was growing up, exchange was still hard for me.

So I can't even imagine the kids who grew up in a monocultural country experiencing that cultural difference, being alone for the first time in their life. I can't imagine it, and most of the people were really struggling. I struggled too, but I was lucky because my host family and host family's friends were super, super nice to me. But most of the students really struggled with that.

You know, when talking about alone, I had a cruciate ligament surgery during my exchange year. We went skiing to Austria with my host family. It was around like the third week of my exchange or something. I fell off, and then I got surgery. When you enter the exchange program, you have to pay for your insurance, and I had insurance, therefore I didn't pay anything for the surgery. But I literally had a surgery, y'all! During my exchange year, nobody had surgery. I was the only one who had surgery during the exchange year. I couldn't walk; I used like those sticks for, I guess, three or four months or so. I did rehab, and it was really hard.

But at that time, because I was in my honeymoon phase, which is the phase that is called you're like literally in your honeymoon in your brain, you're kind of like high. Everything is new to you; everything is nice and fun, and you know, you're just like in that state. So it happened in that honeymoon phase, luckily. During your exchange, your parents cannot visit you; it's not allowed. But like some parents visit their child while like breaking the rules, probably.

In my case, my family was allowed to come because it's just like a, you know, because it's an extraordinary situation. So probably, my family were allowed to come, but I didn't want them to come. I wanted to, you know, experience this by myself because I believe that if I would experience this by myself and figure out what to do, what not to do by myself, I felt like I could grow so much and I can be more independent.

I told my family to like please do not come; I can handle this by myself. So I was literally begging my family not to come because I really looked at this situation in a positive way. I felt, "Oh, you know, I'm aspiring to be a doctor, and I can feel from the firsthand the patient situation in a hospital." If I would experience this abroad as a patient, I feel like it would give me the feeling of a patient: what would patients feel, what would patients love. And I was really thinking in a positive way!

I had my surgery, and then I had to like stay at a hospital for four days or something. I couldn't walk at the beginning; it was really hurting. Even laying was hurting, and I used for two days or so what is this wheelchair. Then I used like these arm sticks and stuff. I also had to always like what is that, like a kind of lick thing which doesn't allow me to do more than like 60-degree angles and stuff, you know?

I did a lot of things, but at that time, I was really enjoying that because you can see the whole process: the operation, you know, system and rehabilitations and stuff. I really enjoyed it because I was looking at it in a very positive way, and that was probably why I really enjoyed my surgery time. A lot of people say that you can't change the past, but I don't think that's true. We can change the past by giving positive or negative meanings to them.

I think that's why even though there is one history, there are different historians, and there are different histories because they give different meanings to the exact same thing that happened. So we can change history, in my opinion, and that's what exactly I did. I looked at it in a very positive way; therefore, the struggles that most of the people would say were not struggles to me. It was just a fun experience that would probably never happen in my life.

Since I'm an exchanger, like having surgery wouldn't affect me that much, but if that would happen in my academic year, I think that would totally make my life shitty. So I'm glad that it happened in my exchange. You know, my host family was really great, but I was really lucky. A lot of people had problems with their host families. I heard a couple of people changing their host families because they had problems.

But when you have a problem with your host family, you gotta find a new host family by yourself. At least, that's what YFU's rule is. I didn't have any problems with my host family; they were super nice. Their friends were nice. I really, really love my host family. I love them so much; like really great from the bottom of my heart. But I think it also depends on you as well.

If you just went to exchange for partying and not really talking with your host family, not trying to understand the other culture, and not communicating, of course, they're not gonna like you. So it's important to have communication between you. You know, you gotta make an effort in order to like them, and so they can make the effort as well. They are the ones that, you know, just allowing you to stay at their home; they are giving you food, shelter, and also different opportunities.

So always be grateful for them. You're not in the equal situation. In order to be in an equal situation, because they give you food and house and, you know, a lot of opportunities, you gotta give good communication to them so that you can maintain a good relationship. At least, I was trying my best to understand their culture and bring my culture, and you know, communicate. It's really, really important.

I've seen so many exchange students not really caring about their host family, not acting kind enough or respectful enough. It's not only host families' fault; of course, there are like some host families that were horrible, yes. But that is very extraordinary. Most of the time, it depends on both sides.

So my recommendation is just keep good communication and respect the other person. It's super, super, super difficult to find a friend. It's super hard because German people are not like so cheerful and friendly as Turkish people. Japanese people are more shy, so if you would go to them, they would talk to you and stuff. But German people? I was shocked!

I was shocked by the cultural difference, y'all! In Turkey, when somebody like comes to your school, comes to your class, if she or he or whatever pronouns they use, comes to that class, at least a couple of people would come to you and say hi, like how are you, who are you, where are you coming from, and stuff. But in Germany, it doesn't happen.

Most of my friends were alone and couldn't find German friends. They were friends with other international students. In my case, at that time, K-Pop was a thing (it's still a thing, I know that), but at that time, I was listening to K-Pop too, so that really helped me to connect with Koreaboos to find friends and stuff. So I didn't have any problems with that, but it was basically because of my looks because I look Asian as [__].

And they were like some Koreaboos; it really helped me, but otherwise, other exchange students couldn't find friends. The only friends that they found were international friends. But I heard that the people who went exchange to the US find really good friends, even like relationships and stuff, so it really differs country to country.

But if you're going to Germany, don't expect people to come to you and be nice to you and be friends with you. German people, I think, are more distant when it comes to friendship because their friendship is kind of different. It takes time to build, but it lasts for a very long time. You know, it's just a cultural difference. I'm not saying which one is better or something; it really depends on the country. I think you gotta just like adjust yourself for that.

But for the majority of your exchange, the truth is you're gonna be alone; you're gonna be alone. Prepare for that. Okay, so another difficulty is that language is hard. Even though before going to Germany for exchange, my German was like super good because German was my favorite subject at school, and at that time, we had our teacher, our German teacher. Our teachers were German. I didn't have a crush, but I admired him so, so much. I wanted to talk to him so badly that every single day I was going home and studying German for multiple hours in order to talk to him, explain to him, understand him. I was studying multiple hours, y'all!

It was not something like a crush or a relationship way; it was just like pure, pure, you know what is that? Pure love, pure admiration towards my teacher that I had back in the day. And that really helped me, so I was really good at German. Even though I was one of the best students in German classes, the entire year was really difficult because native speakers talk very fast, and they use a lot of slangs that I didn't know because they don't teach slangs in schools, and I didn't know that.

A lot of people were doing grammar mistakes that we don't learn in school. You know, when I talk in Turkish or Japanese, I do a lot of grammar mistakes and slangs, and you know, I really talk differently when you compare to those textbooks. So it was super difficult for me to understand.

Also, my host family had friends in Australia, and they have an Austrian-German accent. I couldn't understand it at the beginning, but at the end of my exchange year, I was easily able to understand the accent. It takes a lot of time, but during my exchange, I was studying German at least two hours a day in order to make my German better, and that really helped. I was also talking to my host family quite a lot, and they were really helping with that as well.

So language is hard. A lot of my friends went to Germany without knowing German, but at the end of the year, they were able to talk German. But the ones that were best in the group were the ones that studied regularly every single day and put the work in. You know, the ones who didn't study and only learned from the environment weren't that good. So in order to become good in that language during your exchange, you gotta work first! You gotta work!

Another problem is that food problem. Of course, the culture of food is really different. Going for an exchange, my host family, especially my host dad, was really into cooking, which I really liked. We used to cook every single day after school, and we used to eat really delicious food, which I enjoyed. But when I asked my other exchange friends, they were not like that. They were literally eating like every single day bread, and that was it. So it really depends on where you go, but if you're like going for an exchange in Germany, be ready for breads and potatoes because they eat a lot!

But my host family was really good at cooking. We cooked a lot, and that also really helped with our communication as well, and we had fun. You know, I was really lucky; I'm a lucky girl. For the majority of the people, especially if you are not open to new foods, you're gonna struggle quite a lot.

So another difficulty when it comes to exchange is that during the year, you change a lot. I gained a lot of confidence. I became much more independent; I think I became quite liberal. And it just like changes the whole way you think, changes your personality, and things that you experience build up your new personality. When you go back, your friends and your family won't be able to understand you because they were not there, and you changed a lot.

You know what you experienced, but they haven't seen you for a year or for six months, and they don't know what happened because they don't know the background story. They can't understand you, and a lot of people had problems with friendships and families and stuff. In the exchange program, at least YFU said that you're gonna have a lot of problems when you come back because everybody has it. Everybody changes, and your family expects you to be old you, but you are new you.

You know, when it comes to my friendships, I said, you know, one of my best friends went to Germany for an exchange as well, so it wasn't a big deal for me. Yes, I changed, but because my friends also changed, it wasn't a big deal for me. I said 100 times, I was so, so lucky. Your exchange year can be really fun, but at the same time, if it goes wrong, it can suck so much!

You gotta be really careful. You gotta give effort to get to know people, to sustain it at a great level, and you have to care about your mental health because it's hard. It's so freaking hard! But at the end of the day, it's an awesome experience that you can ever have and that you would never forget. It's one of the best experiences that I had in my life.

People who went to exchange and people who didn't, you can clearly see the difference. The maturity of people who went on exchange is insane! It's taught you so many things. You learn a lot about relationships, friendships, different cultures, and foods, and different people. Your mind expands quite a lot.

That's why I want to go for an exchange during my uni year as well because I gotta learn and meet a bunch of people whom I would never ever ever get to know in Turkey or Germany. That's why I want to live in another country other than Japan or Turkey because they're both in my comfort zone.

Getting outside of your comfort zone is an amazing thing. Yes, it is scary; that's for sure. But when you experience new things, your mind broadens so, so much, and the way you think, the way you pursue things, is gonna change so much.

It's an amazing, amazing experience! I really want to go for an exchange once more. If you are a parent or if you're a kid, go for an exchange. You might regret it; I'm not gonna lie. If you experience something really, really bad, you might regret it.

But for the majority of the people, no matter what happens, most of the people are really happy with their exchange, and I would highly, highly recommend it. Thank you for watching! I hope you go for an exchange, and I hope you will have an amazing year. Let me see you in my next videos. Bye!