Every year, the school welcomes students from around the globe into the student body, and with the help of the Rotary Breakfast Club, other schools around the world have hosted RHS students. The school and the Rolla Rotary Breakfast Club have also hosted over a dozen foreign exchange students in the past 12 years through the Rotary Foreign Exchange Program. Exchange students have come all over the world, and for them, the chance to study in the United States is a huge opportunity. Last year, senior Lydia Bagnall travelled to Peru, and next year, sophomore Rahel Pommerenke will be staying in Belgium. This year, junior Luisa Calero is visiting from Spain.

Kent Bagnall, president of the Rolla Rotary Breakfast Club, has been involved in the Rolla chapter of the program since formation in 1999. Bagnall said in the past ten years, three students from Rolla have studied abroad through the Rotary Club.

“There are a few key requirements. Students have to be between 15 ½ and 18 ½ years old, show that they have the qualities of a good ambassador, and earn decent grades. It’s nice to be involved in extracurricular activities, and, of course, you have to fill out the forms,”  Kent Bagnall said.

The process of becoming an exchange student can be quite grueling.  Students have to first fill out an application, and then enter an interview process. There, extensive interviews are conducted to determine whether or not you are a worthy candidate.

“There are usually 25-30 interviewees trying to get one of the 10-15 slots,” Kent Bagnall said.

Calero had an even more competitive interview process. In her chapter, approximately 130 students applied for the chance to study abroad.

“They’re all in the United States, so there are a lot of Spanish people here,” Calero said.

After the interview process, the students that have been selected are ranked in order by their interviews, their parents’ interviews, academic accomplishments, and many other factors. Students are then assigned to a country.

“Every student gives us a list of their top three choices,” Kent Bagnall said. “If, by the time we reach them, we have a slot open for the country of their choice, they are placed there.”

Some students, like Lydia Bagnall, are lucky enough to receive their first choice and

“I chose Peru because I wanted to learn Spanish for my career – nursing – and of all my options, it was the best on my list,” Lydia Bagnall said.

However, not all applicants get to go to the country of their choice. Because so many people apply to these types of programs, there are not always spaces available in the most popular destinations.

“[When you apply], you put down several choices and then three alternates. My first country choice was France, but I was chosen to go to Belgium instead,” Pommerenke said.

Leaving the country can be an exciting adventure, but also very depressing and nerve-wracking.

“It was very stressful to leave my family, like really stressful. I was very excited to be in Peru, so it wasn’t as hard to leave them as it was to be away from them. After a couple of months it really hit me that I really missed them. Going away and packing my suitcase was really hard,” Lydia Bagnall said.

Being away from family for a whole year can seem overwhelming, especially for a high school aged student.

“I leave for Belgium in August of this year,” Pommerenke said. “I don’t know what problems I’ll face, but I don’t worry too much about it because I know that friends and family will always be there to support me in my decisions, hopefully the right ones.”

Rotary makes sure each student is comfortable and surrounded by positive influences to help them smoothly transition to life in a different country. The organization takes immense safety precautions. Each host family goes through an extensive background check, and similar to the students, endures a rigorous application and interview process. On top of that, Rotary ensures safety with six levels of authority.

“Students can discuss any problems or concerns with their host families, club counselor, youth exchange officer, club president, district coordinator, and district inbound coordinator,” Kent Bagnall said.

With all the excitement of meeting new people and experiencing new things, it may be easy to forget that communication is difficult.

“The first few months were so hard with the language. For a while, I didn’t understand anything my host mom said, She’d say something, I’d say, ‘Yeah’, then look to my host sister and be like ‘Can you say that in English for me?’ But I did eventually learn it and after the first six months, all new words and new things came easily,”  Lydia Bagnall said.

School can also be hard to adjust to, as the students are surrounded by new people and a new culture, and sometimes, a completely different style of schooling.

“It was kind of difficult [to make friends] because our interests were very different,” Bagnall said. “In the Peruvian culture, teenagers like to party and they like to drink and do all the crazy teen stuff and I personally don’t like that. So that was a little bit of cultural difference I had to overcome to make more friends.”

Participants in foreign exchange in Rotary have the opportunity to travel around the host country on the weekends and see a lot of the monuments and museums in the country.

“The vacations around Peru were what really stuck with me. I got to see one of the wonders of the world, Machu Pichu. We took the Inca Trail, which is a four day hike to Machu Pichu, which is basically walking up stairs for seven hours a day, for four days, and that was horrible. But it was so worth it when you got to the end. That was really memorable. And then watching the sun rise over Machu Pichu, after we had walked for four days to get there, it was really gratifying,” Bagnall said.

The skills and experiences gained from studying abroad can really make a huge impact on your life and aspect of the world.

“I hope I’ll be able to speak French fluently and keep that with me for the rest of my life. I look forward to travelling around Belgium and Europe, and making new friends that I can stay in touch with,” Pommerenke said.

Becoming a foreign exchange student is a great opportunity to gain worldly experience and discover other cultures.

“It will benefit me because I will know how to live with other people; I will know how to live without my parents and them telling me what [to do] and what not to do; when I go back to Spain, I will probably have a different type of thinking; I will know what it’s like being with people from other countries; and I will have better English,” Calero said. “I’m enjoying it. I’m going to do everything I can so that I will have missed nothing when I come back. I can do everything in an ‘American year.’”

For more information on becoming involved with the Rotary Foreign Exchange Program, contact Kent Bagnall at (573) 364-1030, or visit the Rotary district website: rotary6080.org