LIHUE – Kauai High School student Lindsey Chun got a life-changing surprise on April 1 when she was notified she would be studying and living abroad in Switzerland. “When I read the email I thought it was an April Fool’s
LIHUE – Kauai High School student Lindsey Chun got a life-changing surprise on April 1 when she was notified she would be studying and living abroad in Switzerland.
“When I read the email I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke,” Chun said.
With the guidance and support of the Rotary Club of Poipu and the organization’s international branches, Chun will board a plane for Zurich in July.
In her application to the student exchange program, she listed her country preferences as Switzerland, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
“I wanted to go to a place where nobody really visits to have a different kind of experience,” Chun said.
The Poipu Rotary Club Youth Exchange Officer Tom Gross said the other exchange student from Kauai during the upcoming school year will be traveling to Spain. Gross has seen life-changing differences in the students over the past eight years he has been mentoring them.
“It depends on the individual,” Gross said. “But they usually come back more confident in themselves, they’ve learned a new language and the biggest lesson is that it forces them to engage with people. It is hard to express yourself when you don’t know the language, but they eventually succeed. They learn there is more to the world than little Kauai.”
To say that Chun, a16-year-old Kauai native, is excited about the exchange program is an understatement. She said she was inspired by her family.
“My grandpa has traveled a lot,” Chun said. “I thought studying abroad would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Her father helped her with the paperwork to apply for the exchange. Since finding out about her acceptance and being assigned to a Switzerland host family, she has been text messaging with her host sisters, who live in a village named Kerns.
“We text about what they like to do, go to the movies, hang out with friends and do winter sports,” Chun said. “I’ll be living in the older one’s room since she is going on her own exchange to Columbia.”
One host sister is 14 years old and the other one is 16. Chun is looking forward to joining them and giving snowboarding, skiing and ice skating a try.
“I’ve been working at learning the language using the Rosetta Stone program,” Chun said. “They speak Swiss German. So far I’ve just learned some individual words, not whole sentences yet.”
The school sizes between Kauai and Switzerland are vastly different. The entire population of the Swiss school is 300 versus the 300 students in her class alone at Kauai High School.
Another difference is in her subject load, which will include extensive language classes including English, German and French. It fits perfectly with her future goals.
“I want to become fluent in German so I can be a translator and travel the world when I get older,” Chun said. “I think it would be really exciting to explore the world and see what’s out there.”
Her dreams also extend to traveling to other countries of strong interest to her, including Morocco, Egypt and Paris.
“The pyramids in Egypt would be cool to see and the Eiffel Tower too,” Chun said.
Her concerns for the near future include two priorities.
“Last year I ran on the cross country team. I want to stay in shape,” Chun said. “I’ve heard foreign exchange students gain a lot of weight and I don’t want that to happen.”
The other one involves her connection to her roots on Kauai.
“People say don’t Skype with your parents too much because it will make you miss them even more,” Chun said.
The high school junior will return to Kauai in June 2015 prior to starting her senior year at Kauai High School. An incoming exchange student in the program will be traveling from Austria to study during the upcoming school year at Waimea High School.
The Rotary Club of Poipu is looking for more volunteers on Kauai to act as host families for incoming students. For further Information about becoming a host or an exchange student, call (808) 332-0844 or email rcpp@poipurotary.org.
• Lisa Ann Capozzi, a features and education reporter can be reached at lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
