Exchange student? (life, cost, country, speak)

[mango555]

I am an 16 year old norwegian girl and I really want to go on exchange for a year!
I just can't decide where to go. I either want to go to USA or somewhere in latin America (like Costa Rica, Argentina or the Dominican Republic).
If you have some advice or suggestions for me it would be very helpful!

[klmrocks]

Sounds like an exciting idea. All great options. It really depends on what your interest are and where specifically you are going in each city. Good luck.

[Sage 80]

Your choice really depends on your personality and how important adventure vs. comfort are to you. Below are some things for you to consider.

LATIN AMERICA
If you want to learn about completely different cultures, somewhere in Latin America may be more interesting for you.
Advantages
- Experience the Latin culture, which is very different from the Norwegian culture
- Learn Spanish
- New foods, music, arts, weather, etc.
- Other countries are relatively close, so you could easily travel to them
- You would considered very exotic

USA
If you want to be somewhere that is somewhat familiar, but is different enough that you would still have lots of new things to experience.
Advantages
- You'd fit in more easily because:
* the overall culture is probably somewhat familiar to you due to the strong American cultural influence in global media
* you'd be in another first world country, so fewer new things to get used to & all the comforts you are used to
* you would have few communication problems because of your ability speak English well already
* your race
- You would have an opportunity to improve your English
- It's very large country with lots of interesting regional and subcultural varieties in foods, arts, music, lifestyle, geography, etc.


Please note that some of the things that I list as "Advantages" may actually be disadvantages to you, because we are all different. Good luck!