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I am going to U.S.A. in a year or two depends when (and if) i pass the competition for the exchange,so i was just thinking about what is the opinion of others on exchange students?By this i mean do they look on them as nerds or stupid people (if one has bad English pronounciation) or just like the rest of the students...
The funny thing is that i am not a nerd at all,i mean i have all the requierments to pass,a grade C and i know English better than most others,so having a C i am not a nerd at all,strange
edit:i heard that there was a girl going on the same program as me and she barely had a d and a half xd ,in Serbia we measure with numbers so 2.5 and thats the requierment minimum,and she passed,so another example of a regular student
Most students in the USA do not treat exchange students like others.
It certainly helps if you have an outgoing personality.
We had a student from Russia and she was outgoing. Things went well for her with friends (a few were made, not many)
Other exchange students that came that were introverted were not received as well.
But, you will be considered a nerd no matter you personality, so plan accordingly.
It depends on the school population, I think. Our friends at the high school hosted a boy through AFS a couple of years ago and he was the ultimate chick magnet. I think it also depends on the person's own attributes-- he was a soccer player and a really outgoing sort in general, so the "ooh, cool accent!" thing was just icing on the cake.
I agree that if a student is outgoing and nice, he or she will be fine. If they are going to be labeled something, it will have to do with them individually - jock, nerd, shy, etc.
I went to a small, rural high school in the Midwest (not the most cosmopolitan area of the U.S., overall), and our foreign exchange students were really well-received, as well, especially if they got involved with lots of extracurriculars, sports and arts alike. An exchange student my senior year was a guy from Sao Paolo, Brazil, and he and I ended up being lab partners in science...got to be friends, and we wrote one another all through college, after he went back to Brazil. We still keep in touch via facebook, and I graduated from high school in 1995, so it's been a while. Back in high school, all the other girls had a crush, thanks to his accent and good looks, but I'm fairly certain that, though charming, he wasn't/isn't interested in girls.
If anything, exchange students seem to be really popular, as they're new and a bit out of the ordinary. I think Americans often fall hard for a foreign accent! If anyone considers you a nerd it will only be because of something individual, not just because you're an exchange student. I don't think it's anything to worry about. (and even if you are a "nerd" at heart, nerds have friends, too!)
Much of that will probably depend on location, though. If you're an exchange student at a school where there's already a large percentage of foreign-born students then you won't stand out at all, and people might not even know that you're an exchange student.
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