Why would you host an overseas student?

[Vanskills]

Im looking into hosting college girls from around the world...

[sponger42]

It's good to hear that there are many host families who do it for the experience and the chance to be hospitable to a foreigner.

There are some who don't, unfortunately. Often they will take advantage of the system for free childcare, additional income, or other reasons. Each time someone is a bad host, it reflects very badly on our country.

One particular example comes to mind in which a pair of teenage girls were hosted by a supposedly strongly-religious single mother who was "house-sitting." The girls were used as free child-care for the woman's daughter while she was away from the home most of the time. When she did come home, she would bad-mouth the child's father swearing in front of both the foreign guests and the child (who, being raised in such an environment, was a handful for the two visitors to manage). Most days they were left to fend for themselves in terms of meals, and ended up eating mostly instant ramen. Cultural experience "trips" consisted almost solely of accompanying the mother to church, and otherwise the girls were abandoned at the house with no transportation nor anything to do but entertain the woman's child.

Of course this left them both with a negative view of the United States culture and the host's religion. Fortunately, this was a short-term program and included time at a student dorm in another city, where they actually were able to go out and experience some culture and hear from friends who had better hosts.

So, please, if you do decide to host, be a good one. And if you are a host-family recruiter, pay attention during the screening process to weed out these bad hosts.