End of Program Reflection: Summer Work and Travel Spring 2019
As our spring season cultural exchange program ended, we asked our participant to share photos of their time abroad and write a mini-essay explaining what they learned and gained from the program and why they feel cultural exchange is important. Our participants’ perspectives encourage the next generation of cultural exchange participants and their stories play a key role in ensuring the longevity of cultural exchanges!
Congratulations to our winner:
Janina Moreira
Everything is about friends, good memories and delicious food!!!
I have no words to describe how incredible was my experience as a J1 in the US.
I made the decision to embark on this trip to feel a little more independent and start to use myself to create an impact on the people I know, and I did it! I’m a very different person now. The fact of working and earning my own money to be able to "survive" in another country where I don’t have my family was a very daring decision and a lot of help to prepare me for the future. The American culture is wonderful and very diverse in all the possible ways, knowing it helped me open my mind more and now I see the world differently, and that is something very positive.
I think the part that most touched me of all my exchange was meeting new people who became lifelong friends. Starting by the incredible girls who lived with me, and my co-workers, that with the passing of days, they were gaining my confidence and helped me to improve my English so I could start conversations that I could not do before, and that made me feel very good. And not to mention the food!!! The buffets, the pizzas, the McDonald's itself! Everything was so wonderful that just remembering it makes me want to return at this moment (If I tell you a secret, I could tell you that the walks to work were the ones that did not let me get fat, without it I do not know what would become of me now).
Anyway, everything that covered my stay in Orlando was crazy. I can say that I am in love with that city and that if in the future I have the opportunity to repeat the experience, I would do it without any doubt!
The WWCE made my stay the best of all, the organization and the concern for all the students is admirable.
Melancholy invades me every time I remember my life in the United States. That wasn’t 3 months of my life, it was a whole life made in 3 months. Thanks a lot. Life will not reach me to thank them for everything you did for me.
Thank you to all our participants who entered!