Foreign exchange student comes to America for the first time
On a day like today in Sydney, Australia, the weather can get close to ninety degrees. On a day like today in Omaha, the weather can get close to 0.
To sophomore Bronte Johnson, the cold was a shock as she adjusted after moving from Sydney. She knew how cold it got, but it wasn’t tangible until she got here.
“Seeing snow was kind of strange,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t snow anywhere near where I live.”
Johnson came to Westside from Sydney for just one quarter to live with her family in Omaha. With her first time being in America, she’s glad she is staying with family instead of strangers. She leaves in March, two months after summer vacation ends in Sydney.
Johnson goes to a selective school in Sydney, which is academically harder than the normal public schools. She describes her school back home as having the same level of difficulty as Westside.
Most things between Westside and her school in Australia are different. Instead of taking final exams, they take subjects each year that are built upon until year 12, or their final year of high school.
“[In year 12] you take massive exams that dictate your entire high school mark,” Johnson said.
These exams include all the information a student has learned throughout their high school career, broken into subject tests. After they take their exams in Australia, the student gets an overall ATAR, or Australian Tertiary Admission Rank. The ATAR score dictates what you can do in college.
Because Australian students take these exams, they don’t have a very wide variety of selection for the types of classes they can take. Johnson likes the variety of classes offered at Westside and the open mods for study time.
But there is one thing Johnson doesn’t like about Westside: the landing.
“The amount of people is a bit confronting,” Johnson said. “My school [in Australia] is a lot smaller.”
Although she leaves in two months, Johnson would like to come back in the future.
“I feel like there is so many more opportunities in America,” Johnson said. “There’s just so many places to go. I want to live in America.”
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