Written by Emma Robinson
Staff Writer
On Oct. 2, a representative of School Year Abroad, a study abroad program affiliated with Peddie, visited campus to encourage students to apply to the program.
Students can choose to either spend one year of high school or a month over the summer living with a host family in Italy, China, France or Spain. The program is language intensive, which allows students to become highly proficient in their chosen language. Each year, two to three Peddie students attend school year abroad. Currently, Sam Musser ’14, Kieran Beach ’15 and Connor Rowan ’16 are studying abroad.
“SYA is one of the best experiences I have ever had,” Musser said. She is currently studying at Spain. “We recently went on a trip and it was amazing. We saw prehistoric cave paintings, hiked and swam. It was indescribably beautiful. We’re currently headed to a small city called Tarazona. It’s pretty amazing that SYA can just decide that we’re going to go on a random day trip and I wind up in the coolest places I’ve ever seen.”
Last summer, Justin Ryu ’14 traveled to China. “While the teachers were very competent and taught us many useful sentence structures, the real learning was being able to explore the dynamic and interesting city of Beijing,” Ryu said. “Learning a language in its country of origin allows students to utilize their learning. It helped me learn Chinese very quickly.”
While learning a language in its country of origin is very valuable, SYA students also are able to bridge barriers through their interaction with their host families.
“In the US, people are of all nationalities, while in China, people are mostly Chinese,” Radhika Sharma ’14 said. Sharma spent the 2012-2013 school year in China.
“In America, my family and I sneak popcorn and soda into movie theaters, while in China, my host family and I sneak actual whole ears of boiled corn and green tea into movie theaters.”
Students also form lifelong bonds with others who attend the same program. “SYA provided an environment in which I was able to bond in an unbreakable and unique way with students who were just as unfamiliar as I was with the culture,” Sharma said. “All of my classmates came from incredibly diverse backgrounds, but we had one thing in common – our year together in a foreign land.”
