Student Exchange - Örebro, Sweden

In the spring of 2017, I applied for the student exchange offered by my school with an international school in Örebro, Sweden, a lovely city about 2 hours west of Stockholm. It was my first ever international experience; as I was just turning 14, I had never had the chance of joining international project work or exchanges before. However, now I was in the 9th grade and looking forward to meeting new people.

After being accepted into the programme, we had a few Swedish lessons, learning about the language and culture, before our exchange partners visited us in the summer. My exchange partner was a few years older than me, which did not stand in the way of us getting along well. We spent some evenings chatting about our experiences and others getting together with the others in the programme. Over the days, we spent a lot of time in Buxtehude or Hamburg exploring different cultural sights, some of which directly related to Swedish-German relations.

After the week where the Swedish students visited us, we were already very close as a group and enjoyed learning from each other and with each other - the cultural exchange got very interesting, especially when debating about politics or societal topics. It was my first time being able to have insightful conversations in English. So while not only strengthening my group work and exchange skills, I was also able to significantly improve my communication skills in English.

In September, it was our turn to fly to Sweden and visit our partners. We got to see a lot of Örebro and discover the surroundings; we went on hikes, visited Stockholm and spent a lot of time together with the group. As we already knew everyone quite well, it was much easier starting conversations and engaging with others.

I enjoyed my time in Sweden and learned a lot from the other students, whether they were from Sweden or from my own school. It was my first experience abroad in an academic surrounding and my first ever English-spoken event. I can confidently say that this exchange was part of the foundation of my interest in internationalism, cultural exchange and diversity and inspired me to keep an open eye to any other projects I had the chance of coming across.