Your Exchange Toolkit: Advice for Students

If the excitement of arrival is starting to fade and everyday life feels a little harder, this episode is for you. Hear real advice from last year’s AFS students on making friends, setting realistic goals, and handling challenges like school, homesickness, and family dynamics. Amanda and John from AFS-USA’s Participant Support & Learning Team share their insights and actionable guidance to help you thrive during this phase of your exchange. Whether you’re a student, host family, or volunteer, you’ll find helpful strategies to stay grounded and grow through the ups and downs of your AFS journey.

Guests:
Yassin from Germany 🇩🇪
Isa from Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Miko from Poland 🇵🇱
Non from Thailand 🇹🇭
Laiva from Indonesia 🇮🇩
Paagiina from Mongolia 🇲🇳
Amanda Brown
John Hammel

More from AFS-USA: 🏠Host a Student | ✈️Study Abroad | 🤝Volunteer | 🏫For Educators | 📧Contact the Show | 🎧Collections

Chapters

• 2:24 Yassin from Germany 🇩🇪
• 5:31 Isa from Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
• 12:25 Miko from Poland 🇵🇱
• 21:13 Non from Thailand 🇹🇭
• 25:17 Laiva from Indonesia 🇮🇩
• 32:09 Paagiina from Mongolia 🇲🇳

Transcript

Kate Mulvihill
Hello and welcome to The AFS Exchange. I'm Kate Mulvihill. On this podcast, we share real stories from the AFS community. We're here to explore how exchange programs change lives, one conversation at a time.

Kate
So, it is October, and if you are a student on an AFS program right now, you may be feeling a bit… of a dip. Perhaps the initial high of being on program has started to wane a little bit, and you are starting to feel the realities of exchange setting in. The realities, as in… daily life! Struggles with school, host families, making friends. Feeling kind of homesick. Feeling… very homesick.
We know it’s tough, so we’ve gathered some wisdom to share with you all.

For this episode, you'll hear advice clips from past participants who were in your shoes just last year. Then, after each clip, I'll be talking with Amanda and John from AFS-USA's Participant Support and Learning Team to expand on what those students had to say.

These are clips I pulled from longer interviews I did last spring. You’ll also hear some voices that will be featured again in next month’s episode, which is all about Overcoming Challenges.

So, let's hear some advice from last year’s AFS participants, who come from six countries across the globe, and from Amanda and John, who come from… here.

[Music]

Kate
Could you please introduce yourselves?

John Hammel
Hi there. I'm John Hammel. I am a Support Specialist here at AFS USA.

Amanda Brown
And I am Amanda Brown, and I am one of the two co-managers of Participant Support and Learning at AFS USA.

Kate   
And how long have you been with the Support Department, Amanda?

Amanda   
I have been with the Support Department for nine years.

Kate   
You've seen a lot.

Amanda   
Yes yes, I have. But I love talking about Participant Support, and I love the work that we do.

Kate
Okay so to get started with the advice, we have Yassin, who we heard from on a podcast episode just a few months ago.

Yassin
Hi, my name is Yassin. I'm 16 years old, and I'm an exchange student from Germany, and I'm spending the school year 2024- 2025 in the US. I'm placed in Morristown, New Jersey, not too far from New York City, which is really nice.

Yassin
One advice is definitely not to have expectations, or big expectation, at least. You can have maybe kind of an idea how it's going to be in the US, but you never really know how it is, like in reality. Like some like, I'm sure, like some places are really like the movies, or like the shows or on Netflix that are that everybody sees that like, exactly like that, but the chance that you really get there is very low, so it's always a very unique experience. And you just have to accept, like every situation, make the best of it, and you have to really get out of yourself. Like, I think half of the exchange experience is made by you or like, how you react, how you are, that you go, go out, do a lot of stuff, that you do stuff with your host family, with friends, at the school, etc. Because if you're just a person who always is in your room or also like, basically talk to friends or parents in your home country the whole time, I think it's really hard for you to really arrive in the US and have a life here.

Kate
So there, Yassin talked about not having big expectations… and we’re going to hear more about that later! But he also said how it’s important to get out of your room and also to separate a bit from connecting with folks from home. What do you think about that, John? Is this something you’d recommend as well?

John
So Yassin makes an excellent, excellent point there and here in support, one thing we like to say is, your program is kind of what you make of it. And so opening yourself up to new experiences is really important, and that can mean, you know, maybe limiting some of the communication with you back home, and instead trying to form those connections with your host family and members of your community. And it definitely means trying to stay out of your room where you can, you know, and spend time in communal parts of the home, and really make the effort to integrate into your host family and get to know them and become a member of that family.

So part of adjusting to that new community and adjusting to that new host family is leaning on your local resources for support. You know, it's it's one thing to reach out to your sending family back home who might have been your support structure back home, but they're not living in your host community like your host family is or your liaison is, and really they are the best positioned to offer you that that that localized support and that support that that takes into account the cultural context of the community a student is living in.

Kate
Okay, great. That goes well into our next clip with Isa. Isa also mentions the importance of connecting with your liaison…

Isa
So my full name is actually Islam, yeah. But I go by Isa because it's much easier to go by Isa rather than Islam, yeah. And also, many people just mispronounce my name,

Kate   
Okay, What country are you from?

Isa
I'm from Kazakhstan.

Kate   
Okay, And for the listeners, where is Kazakhstan?

Isa
Kazakhstan is located in the heart of Central Asia. Some people would think that, you know, it's a part of Russia, but it's actually not. And even though it's located kind of close to Russia, and it does share a border, it's an independent country, yes, but actually a very young one.

Isa   
I would love to give some words of advice.
And what I would mostly say is that for a successful exchange year, I think future exchange students should not have big expectations about the exchange year in the US. Because sometimes expectations may, at some point, ruin the exchange year.

Because, for example, if I imagine that I will be placed in like, you know, Hollywood, and my host parents would be like celebrities, and I would go to like, you know, super private school and all this kind of stuff. But sometimes, I mean, almost all the time, it just doesn't happen.

And during the exchange year, I mean, there will be a lot of challenges in almost every field of your life, yes, but just don't get expectations to ruin your exchange year. And in the cases when it's not, like, you know, it's not as good as it was expected or planned, it's just, it's important to talk. It's important to communicate with people because, I mean, in AFS, unlike in some other placement organizations, every student gets his own liaison. And actually having a liaison is great, because you get to talk to them whenever you want, whenever you're feeling a little bit down, whenever you're having some trouble. In your school, in your host family, in like generally, in your host community, you can talk to them.

And the same thing is, like with host families, it's important to build, like, you know, friendly at some point, relationship with your host family. And whenever there's something going on, it's important to talk about it. The first thing that you should always do before, like, before getting offended, before being like mad or sad is just talking about it, sharing your opinion, getting to know what they think, and just communicating with people is very important as so I would say it works like you know, almost in every field of your life during the exchange year, because you're coming to a very different to very different place, and it's a very different culture.

And I mean, some, for example, American teenagers don't act the way Kazakh teenagers do, yes, so sometimes it would actually, you know, kind of confuse me a little bit, but it's just the way they live. And it doesn't mean that, you know, I should be upset, because they just don't react to same way Kazakh teenagers do. So the best thing to do here is probably to talk to them, because I think, I don't think they're aware, they're aware of differences. Yeah, so again, communication and talking out loud is important.

And you know, the best thing that we learned in the Pre-Departure Orientations as FLEX students is that we should always remember the quote, “Not better, not worse, just different.” And it means that the host community you're living in is not better, is not worse, it's just different. And in cases when you're feeling like, oh my god, I hate this year, I hate this school, I hate this family, all this stuff because of. Like, you know, little like a little fight coming on, it's just important to remember that it's just a cultural difference. It's literally like everything is different from what you used to see. And by experiencing such cases, I would say that students actually grow personally. Yes, and I think that's it.

Kate
Isa mentioned getting support from his liaison. We know that AFS volunteers, including liaisons, can play a big role in the program. In what ways do volunteers and liaisons support students?

Amanda   
So I would say for AFS, the connection between students and their AFS liaisons are really a hugely important foundation for the AFS program. In our experience, when students and liaisons have a strong connection, when they are in regular communication, and most importantly, when students feel like they can reach out to their liaison at any time, whether they have something big or small that they want to talk about or ask, that makes for a stronger overall experience and a more meaningful experience. So my advice to students would be, use your volunteers. Lean on them if you have a question, even if that question is small, reach out. You can also reach out to your host parents. But volunteers and liaison serve that critical role, and a lot of that role has to do with communication. It has to do with just listening, guiding, talking through things, reflecting together on experiences.

John   
Yeah, absolutely. And, and Isa also makes a really interesting point about expectations, and I just want to acknowledge expectations are normal. They are completely human. But it is important not to be rigid in those expectations to the point where you're closing yourself off from new experiences.
American culture is, you know, so ubiquitous, and you know, spread across the world, it's really easy to form certain unrealistic expectations based off of popular media. If I had a piece of advice for students preparing to start their AFS program, it's to keep in mind that we're a big, diverse country, and your experience will be uniquely yours. It could look very different from how American life is portrayed in popular media, and it will most likely be different from other participants in other parts of the countries and even participants in your own community. And as Amanda pointed out a great cultural resource for navigating those expectations, is your local volunteers, your local liaison.

Kate
Okay. Next up, Miko. He talks about comparison via social media, which we already touched on, but also provides some advice on making friends.
Mikolaj Satora - POL - Florida

Miko   
Hi, I'm Mikolaj. People here call me Miko. So it's like M-I-K-O, first four letters of my name, because it just like easier for people to pronounce.
I'm from Poland. I came here through FLEX program. I'm hosted in Florida. Yeah, and then spending my exchange year here with wonderful people in this, very, very amazing place.

Miko
It's very common among exchange students to post things in Instagram. I also do it.
But it's always like that on Instagram, you see this, like the best part of the exchange, but you don't see like all these days when you just sit at home studying. Or, like, waiting for somebody to invite you somewhere, or, I don't know. It’s just like, that's the thing that sometimes you can look like on all this nice stories of other exchange students and thinking that, “Oh, I wish I could be in their position.”

But not every day is like this. It's just, it's one full year. So it's like a normal, like regular life of a teenager here. So some times are more exciting, some are less exciting, and you just need to be able to survive all of them. Yeah, and take your advantage that you are here and experience as much as you can.

Miko
Another big challenge is always the making friends. And it's not only like my issue everybody, like literally every single exchange students who I talk to, has a big problem to make friends here, because, like, we are usually used to having a nice group of friends there, back in our countries, that we are very comfortable with, and, like, we don't even know how we met each other, it just like was natural, or like we just was going to the same school, and it was, it just came natural.

And here, like, we get, like, randomly dropped to United States where, like, for example, in my case, I'm in junior year this year. So when I came here, like, all of the students my age, they have known each other for,  for a while. I don't know, like, how many years, but this is, this is always different, but, but they are known each other pretty well, and you need to kind of like, slide into the group of friends and and try to, like, adapt yourself.

Here it's just like my strategy was just to, like, talk to everybody, because, like, eventually, you always meet good people. So when I came here, I just talked to a bunch of different people and to to most of them. I've never talked again after this, but I find that I finally found one friend who introduced me to his group of friends, and after that, I became a friend with all of them. So, so this is, like, probably the the how to say this. This is the way how to make friends here, because, like, you need to select a group of friends. Because, like, it's really hard to make your group of friends when people already know each other.

Miko
That's what I also recommend to like, not keep with the same activities for entire year, but try different things, like, whatever it is like with volunteering, different things, with sports, with clubs, to try as many things as you can, because, like, it's only one year, and I think that this also, like, helps to keep this in mind that it's only one year, so like, it kind of forces you to be quick, to like, really engage us as fast as you can. But also, don't really overthink these things. I think that this helps that you have in mind that even if something doesn't work out in this way, remember that it's only for one year. It's temporary so, like, even if something doesn't work. Like you want, it's okay. Because in three months, I'm going home so, like, it doesn't matter that much.

Kate
Miko’s approach about making friends- “just talk to everybody”- makes a lot of sense to me. You never know who you’ll click with! What do you think, Amanda?

Amanda   
I think Miko’s guidance is really great. It seems as though he is giving advice to other students to just put themselves out there, take that step forward. Be that person to say hello. And I will say that is great. I will also say that can be really hard for for an exchange student who's new to a community that can be challenging. Sometimes making friends in the United States can be very, very unique. It can be very different, and look like very different things than what students are used to back home.

American high schoolers, they don't always have the habit of being the ones to approach our exchange students and say, “Hello.” Sometimes they are very, very shy, and sometimes they might even actually be feeling more shy than the exchange students that we have. So don't be afraid to be the one to approach new people and say, “Hello.”

One thing that we do see is that a very, very common and very, very recommended way of making friends in the United States is to join a club or an activity. For most of our exchange students, clubs or activities are the best way to make friends. A lot of schools will have those activities kind of built into their school life. For those of you listening and you're an exchange student, you haven't found at your school an activity that you really click with. There might be similar activities in your local community outside of your school. But also, we would recommend try something new, try something that you might not be inclined to try, try something different that you don't know if you like it or not, say yes to that opportunity.

Another thing that I want to say about making friends in the United States is sometimes it can take persistence. And by persistence, what I mean is if you try something like saying hello and it doesn't work the first time around, try it again, and maybe even try it again. Sometimes persistence is needed, especially when it comes to making connections with American stu dents that might be feeling shy as well. If you need help, you can talk to your liaison, and you can also talk to the school staff as well, a guidance counselor or a teacher can also help.

Kate   
Great. Miko also wanted to give a reminder to other participants that… what you see on social media, that’s not necessarily reality.

John   
Yeah absolutely, as Miko points out, you know, there of course are challenges associated with social media. One important thing to keep in mind is when, when people post on social media, they're presenting their best selves, and it's not necessarily an accurate depiction of that person's true experience.
So keep in mind that some things on program are going to be mundane. You're going to be waiting at the bus stop, you're going to be doing homework, you're going to be, you know, sitting in the living room watching TV with your host family. It might not be exciting, it might not be glamorous, and you might be comparing your experience to what your peers or your classmates are posting on social media, and that might make you feel a little bit left out. But it's important to remember again that everybody on program is going to experience some highs and some lows and some things will be a little bit mundane, and it's important not to judge your experience, your own program experience based off of what you're seeing other people post on social media.

Kate
Exactly. And I mean, this advice can apply to pretty much anyone. I mean, I’m not an AFS participant and I still benefit from reminding myself that what I see on social media is not the whole story.
Okay, well, next up, I’m going to play a clip from Non, whose advice is about how it’s important to acknowledge your feelings of homesickness.

Non
Hello. My name is Chayanon, or you can call me Non. I am an exchange student from Thailand, and I am in the sponsor program called YES Program. And I am living in Chicago right now.

Non
I know everything may look new and everything may look everything may look new and everything may look like, Oh, it's coming so fast. Everything's like, uncontrollable and you may feel like homesick. You may feel like “I want to go home. When can I go home?” So I want to say that it's okay to be tired, but the faster you overcome your tired, overcome like this challenge, the faster you will experience like that you will gather a good experience. 

Kate
Okay. So you are saying that it is okay to feel tired, but it is important to recover quickly so that you can really begin your year?

Non
Yeah. Like, it's okay to be tired, if you can overcome your tired, if you can overcome your you know, like sadness, you do feel like how lucky you are to be here.

Kate
Okay, so, Amanda. We know that homesickness is normal and part of the adjustment. Participants shouldn’t get down on themselves for feeling this way. But… how can they move past these feelings?

Amanda   
So sometimes I like to think about adjusting to a whole new culture and a new country as like climbing a mountain, and we know how hard it can be to climb a whole mountain. And sometimes what I have experienced is students might feel a little overwhelmed when they think about the whole mountain that they have to climb. And I think when we're talking about homesickness, homesickness can be probably one of the most commonly occurring rocky parts of climbing that mountain.

One of the best ways we can think about overcoming homesickness and getting up that mountain is taking things one step at a time, overcoming XYZ or overcoming homesickness, overcoming this part of the exchange, overcoming that part of the exchange. Sometimes those can be seen as so huge, and breaking that down into individual steps that students can take can be really helpful and really powerful.

Some good examples of things that we see that works really well to help students overcome homesickness are things like actually limiting contact with home. It seems counterintuitive, and it doesn't always make sense, because when you're feeling really strong feelings about wanting to be home, you want to connect with people and places and things that remind you of home. In our experience, it has the opposite effect, and the more you can lean on the supports that are built in locally, your host family, your liaison, etc. It does help over time, to overcome homesickness.

Another thing that we talk a lot to students about nowadays is self care. What are the things that help you feel more calm? What are the things that help you feel more comfortable? Whether it be listening to music, journaling, taking 10 or 15 minutes out of your day to be alone, to collect your thoughts, those can be really common self care strategies that we definitely recommend students explore. And if you don't know what your self care strategies are, that's a great conversation to begin with your host family and your liaison.

Kate
Next, we hear from Laiva. She's got some great advice for future students, but first, she shares a bit about a change up in her morning routine. It was unexpected but it actually gave her a sense of peace she didn't even know she needed.

Laiva   
My name is Laiva, and I am from Indonesia, and 16 years old, and now I'm staying in Kansas City Missouri with my host family for one academic year.

Laiva   
So here in the US, my house is very close to my school that I can walk or use my bike to go there. It's like one mile away. So during my first day, I decided to try using a bike to school.
But I wasn't aware of the hills. So it's not an easy ride, and it wasn't as good as I expected, because I was in a rush and full of sweat. But day by day, I kept doing like riding my bike or walk from school and to go back home.
And I realized that I enjoy the time. Because as someone who used to being in a rush, and on a strict schedule, like after school, I used to go to practice in Indonesia, but here I can chill and walk on my on pay, on pace, listening to music that I like, and just take a fresh air. So I realized that I enjoy walking if it's like a break from my busy day, which is something that I wasn't aware of, that I needed. It might sound silly, no no,

Kate
And it seems like, when you are walking or biking to school and home, that it is a time that is just for you, you are by yourself, and you are waking up and maybe thinking about the day ahead of you.
But you know, you kind of, it's kind of like meditative in a way, right? And to end your day that way as well, I think that that's really good, and probably kind of gives you a lot of peace. You know, when you go back home to Indonesia, maybe that is something that you will be able to build into your day. Maybe, if you can, because it seems like it's good, it seems like it is making you feel good.

Laiva   
Yeah, it feels amazing. I enjoy it.

Kate
Let's see. What advice would you give yourself? If you could talk to yourself before you stepped on that plane, the very long plane ride that took you here, if you could give yourself some advice, what would you say?

Laiva
I would say that to myself, that everything cannot be instant and it takes time. But in the end, you will realize that progress is also something that important, other than just the result. And I also want to say that try something that you like, do something that you want to do, don't hold yourself back because of something in the past, or that you worry too much. So step outside your comfort zone.

Kate
Absolutely. And you said that very well, that things take time. You are not going to arrive in the United States, and all of a sudden have 100 friends and be super close with your host family and speak English perfectly. No, and if people say that that is happening to them, then they are lying, because it doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen that way. So yes, I think that is good. I think that is good. Things take time.

Kate
Okay, so, in this world of instant gratification, how can students manage the pressure to have a perfect AFS experience right away? Also… well, not just students! I guess this question also applies to host families, volunteers…

John   
So one thing to keep in mind is adjustment, it's a process. It's not an event. So it is something that takes time. It is a journey, and a journey where the journey itself is often times more important than the destination
And I think sometimes students, host families, liaisons, volunteers might feel like they know the answer to a situation, or they know a quick fix. Or that, if you know, as long as I get moved, everything will fall into place and everything will be perfect.
Or as long as I am able to transfer schools, everything will be perfect.
Or if I could just, you know, if my host brother could just, you know, stop leaving the seat up in the bathroom, everything would be perfect. And and we know that there really aren't any quick fixes. There aren't really, you know, nothing. There's no button we can press that is going to make everyone immediately well adjusted to a situation or or have a student immediately feel comfortable in a situation, even.

Amanda   
I really like the direction that you were going in, John.
I do recognize that we do live in a world of instant gratification, or at least that's what a lot of people expect and and I think what that results in sometimes is a discomfort with acknowledging that not only are experiences sometimes not perfect, but it also sets up a discomfort sometimes with the reality that people are not perfect, and that we are human, we are complex, and we make mistakes sometimes.

And actually, when I think about our founders of AFS and what they were trying to do, and the world that they were living in, they were living in a world where differences between people and differences between cultures were very difficult, and those challenges, of those more difficult differences, they were not handled well by societies.

And a lot of what we try to enforce at AFS is an acknowledgement that people are different, and sometimes those differences are hard, so the processes that we use at AFS are really designed to help people work through those differences, rather than make those differences go away, make the discomfort go away as quickly as possible.
We know that sometimes challenges arise, and we know that a lot of times those challenges that arise are because of differences. We work through them, and that's one of the things that makes AFS, AFS.

Kate
Okay great. So yeah, Laiva's advice about how it’s important to recognize that things take time, but in this final clip we hear about what happens when you take a more deliberate approach to personal growth. This is Paagiina… she's got a very organized system for achieving her goals, which I found super  admirable and can be good advice- not just for exchange students.
However… it is also important to know when you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.

Paagiina
Hi, everybody, my full name is Pagmadulam but you can call me Paagiina, and I'm from Mongolia. and I came to the United States through the program called FLEX. My host state is in Maryland right now.

Paagiina
Every single day, like to choose, like, the main three goals for a day and try to, like, accomplish. So like, three main things.

Kate   
And I'm just curious about your like, your daily goals, that is very… what's the word I’m looking for… like, admirable. Admirable. So do you just every day, sit down and write, or is it in your phone? How do you set your goals for the day?

Paagiina
How I set my goals is… so I read a book, Do What Matters Most. It was a best selling book for people who want to prioritize their time to be successful in the future.

First of all, I have, like, written the vision goal for myself. It's like a long term goal. So since I have a really big long term goal, I will divide it into like, short, like rows and goals for myself, like every single day.

And then it turns into, basically, pre-week planning.  So this week's goal is I'm gonna like to memorize 10 or 15 words, or to read my new chapters of the book, or to accomplish, like one of the tests, or to prepare for the new assignments like that.

And but every single day, I have like a goal notebook, that I write down, like only three top main things that I have to do at the for the day. And then I'm trying my best to, like, accomplish every single day's goal. And since I accomplished it, there's like, another two or three goals and not really necessary. But if I have a time, I can do that, but it starts with like, the most prioritized, the most important thing.

Yeah. And I also, every single day I wake up early to write down, do you know, like manifesting, manifestation? Yes, I do manifesting. So I have also a separate notebook. So I wrote down, like, every single goal.   I feel it, I like, kind of picture it by my brain. And then it like works, yeah, it works.

Kate   
I love that. I have so many notebooks. Like this notebook is for one thing, that notebook is for another thing. I plan everything out. I have journals for this. I have journals for that. So I applaud your organization and your commitment to all of this.

Paagiina
Thank you!

Kate
Is this something that you would do back home, or is this something you're doing more of now that you're here in the States?

Paagiina   
Back home, I was inspired by my two older sisters, because they're, like, much older than me. They much like, experienced life before me, and they often suggest to plan. Because if you do not plan, everything would be turned into dreams. So planning makes your goal reachable.

And then back home, I used to do like, lot of lists of the day, like specific times, and I'm trying to do it perfectly. But I knew that, like, nobody can do everything perfectly. You know, every day you have new things, something new can happen. So instead of that, since I came in here, I found only like three important things that I can do and accomplish for my future. One can be like for my health, one can be from studying education. One can be for my personal development or host family activity, like the main three things prioritized. I learned in here because I learned from my mistakes. I tried to be like perfect for everything. Like to manage everything, but I knew that it was not possible for me to do everything.

Kate   
Is there an example that you would feel comfortable sharing of a time that you tried too hard to be perfect and it didn't work out?

Paagiina   
It happened. Just a few months ago, in November and December. I was like preparing for my Future Business Leaders of America composition for public speaking. And then I'm a part of, like, seven extracurricular clubs in my school, and I'm also in musical, so we have practice and rehearsal. I'm in the Mock Trial, we have Mock Trial competitions going on, and then my semester has just ended, and there's, like, a lot of tests going on.
So I just, like, I jot down into my notebook, like, wake up at like 5 and like, sleep at 1130 like, do a lot of things. And one day I checked myself, and that day I was really exhausted, I'm so stressed, and I checked I only did, like, two or three of them, and I was, like, I really kind of frustrated for myself. But then I talked to like, trusted adults to give me like, suggestion, and they told me that you didn't have to be perfect, but you only, like, need to choose the three important thing and like, trying to, like, prioritize what mattered most. Yeah. So I just found that I shouldn't have to be, like, perfect, for everything.

Kate   
And those are, like a lot of things, like a lot of things, mock trial and school and other extracurriculars, and also trying to make friends and be in the musical and all of those things. And studying!

Paagiina   
Yeah, and I love yoga and going to like gym because my host family goes to this health center, for swimming. I want to do everything for good, for me to become a better version of myself. But sometimes it's just too much pressure to do something at the same time.

Kate
Okay so, Paagiina’s goal setting is impressive. She knew what she wanted to accomplish and was intentional about her steps to get there. Amanda and John, what do you guys think about goal setting? How important is it to set goals for your AFS program? But also… how much pressure is too much pressure to put on yourself? I mean, Paagiina had a little bit of burnout, it seems.

John   
I think, well, first when a student is on program, they're going to be hearing questions from their host family, from their liaisons, from members of their community, and that question is going to be, “What are your goals for this year” And often times, those can be long term goals. Maybe your host family wants to know what your goals for English learning are. You know, where, where do you want to be in nine months? Or, you know, maybe your liaison will ask you, what are your goals for participating in extracurriculars? What sports do you want to play? How do you want to go about forming a social circle at school? And those are really important goals to keep in mind. 

I love the idea of setting daily goals, because, again, this is, this is a process, as opposed to an event, and taking those smaller steps are really important. You're not going to become fluent in English tomorrow. You're probably not going to be the most popular student at your school tomorrow, or to be the quarterback on your varsity football team. But by setting those goals small at first, you can work towards those longer goals, where I would caution students, is be prepared to fail at some of those goals.

Again, there's no such thing as a perfect exchange. You're you. You won't be a perfect student. You know, your host family might not be perfect. School might not seem perfect. These are all challenges that are part of an AFS experience. And again, I would really encourage students to open themselves up to failure and to see it as a learning experience, because that's exactly what it is. It's an opportunity to say, “Okay, well, maybe this didn't go my way this time. How do I get back out there and achieve my goals regardless?”

Amanda   
I think if there's one other thing I want to add, and it's interesting. I think some of what I said before about, you know, people being perfect, or the expectation that people are perfect, could potentially apply here. But what I will also say is, I think it's good for students to think about one of their program goals as self care, making sure you get enough sleep, making sure you have three meals a day, making sure you know you're not glued to your phone every day, that you're getting yourself outside, moving around, You know, engaging in some degree of physical activity, whether that's taking walks with your host family, walks with your friends, a sport, some sort of a thing. So the kind of pillars of self care that we would definitely recommend students explore, I actually think it's a good idea for students to think of self care maintenance as one of their goals for their program. And again, drawing music, pursuing interests can also be a form of self care as well. Great.

Kate
That’s great, Amanda. Alright! That was our last clip to share. Thank you to Yassin, Isa, Miko, Non, Laiva, and Paagiina.
Okay, Amanda and John, before I have you back for next month’s episode about Overcoming Challenges… is there anything either of you would like to add? Personal advice from your own experiences as a student, or as a member of the Support team?

Amanda   
The AFS exchange experience is one year in the middle of a whole journey that will take place. Intercultural learning, in my opinion, never really has a beginning date or an end date, and it certainly doesn't begin or end with the AFS program.
There is intercultural learning that all of our students have had, most likely had before they go on program, and there is most definitely intercultural learning that's going to take place afterwards. I don't think that learning ever really ends. So we want to encourage our students as well as our host families and our volunteers, to embrace all that the year can offer and then also have that long term aim as well to continuing to embrace intercultural learning even after their exchange ends.

[Music]

Kate
I hope that these advice clips help you remember that your experiences on program… they are unique, but in many ways, they are not. If you’re dealing with homesickness, making friends, connecting with your host family… you are one among many. Remember that if you’re having a tricky time on program and need support or guidance, to reach out to your liaison, a volunteer in your team, or your host family.
As I mentioned, we'll be back with another episode similar  like this for you students next month! We'll be focusing on the stories of overcoming challenges while on program. Until then, be patient with yourselves, be patient with those around you, and maybe put your phone down for a little bit. I will too.

Kate
Thank you for listening to The AFS Exchange. I hope you enjoyed this new kinda format we tried out today. This is actually the second advice episode we’ve done for the show. The first one was way back in Season 1, called Advice from Us to You. It’s from 2021 which feels like a lifetime ago. 
A few things for you before we wrap up. A reminder about the updated podcast page on the AFS-USA website. We’ve grouped our favorite episodes into curated collections, making it easier to find episodes on specific topics- like the host family experience, study abroad student stories, the volunteer experience, and more. You'll even find a collection of my personal favorites, called Kate’s Picks. You can check out the updated site at afsusa.org/podcast. 

Also, we are still looking for folks to chat with in Season 6!  We'd love to connect with any AFSers who also have their own podcasts, whether you're a student, volunteer, or host family. It doesn’t need to be about study abroad. If you know of someone, or if you have feedback on this episode, please send an email to podcast@afsusa.org.
 
This podcast was created by Kate Mulvihill. Social media by Julie Ball and Nina Gaulin. Thanks again to Amanda and John from the Participant Support and Learning Department.