Photo courtesy of Peri Forbes
In the age of helicopter parenting, Peri Forbes’ story sounds like fiction.
Forbes, a senior at New Albany High School, spent her junior year studying abroad in Croatia as part of the Rotary International Youth Exchange Program.
Though many students study abroad at some point during their education, most do so in college, not high school. The truth is that Forbes isn’t like most other students.
“It was a ‘why not?’ decision, because I love to look for new adventures,” Forbes says.
Her parents were very supportive of her decision, and Forbes’ mother even played a large part in finding the program for her.
“Other parents wondered if my parents were sending me away because I did something wrong, or they would ask, ‘Why are you letting her do this?’” Forbes says. “To that question, my parents always said, ‘Why not? This is what she wanted and it’s an amazing opportunity.’”
Rotary has been facilitating exchanges such as Forbes’ since 1929, sending teenagers around the world to more than 200 participating countries. Exchanges can be short-term, about a month, or long term, like Forbes’, for a year. The Rotary program in Columbus provides a year’s worth of training for the students participating in the exchange prior to their summer departures.
Other parents wondered if my parents were sending me away because I did something wrong, or they would ask, ‘Why are you letting her do this?' To that question, my parents always said, ‘Why not? This is what she wanted and it’s an amazing opportunity.'
“Once a month, there is a training sleepover weekend where they will train you on what to expect and how to solve problems that come your way,” says Forbes.
The more prepared the students, the more likely they are to achieve the goals of the program, which Forbes says are “to explore, share and learn cultural differences, with the added bonus of learning a new language to help provide service to the global community.”
Forbes lived and studied in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. She would catch a bus each morning that would take her to the tram, and the tram would take her to school. Her classes took place in either the morning or the afternoon; certainly different than a typical day at New Albany High School. Classes were more varied, too.
Photo courtesy of Peri Forbes
Forbes reads to a group of younger students in Zagreb.
“I think (Croatian) school was a lot more difficult because students take up to 16 different classes a year at the same time,” says Forbes.
Forbes lived with two host families during her time there, typical for the Rotary program. The eldest sibling in both families had participated in the Rotary exchange before. Having someone nearby who knew what she was going through helped Forbes’ transition.
One of the stated purposes of the Rotary Exchange Program is to help students learn outside of the classroom in addition to inside it. Forbes’ host families helped provide much of that outside of the classroom learning by taking her on many trips and serving as personal tour guides. Living with two different families added even more cultural experience, as one of her families was Muslim and the other was Catholic.
One might think that a high level of maturity would be required of a high school student who wanted to study abroad, and while Forbes certainly has that, she takes a different view.
“Studying abroad allows students to mature by learning a new language and going through different struggles or milestones without someone holding their hand,” she says.
Now that Forbes has returned to NAHS and is finishing up her senior year, she has fallen back into the swing of her stateside life. Her favorite class is math, and she enjoys delving deeply into book analysis in her English class. She’s also doing some writing of her own.
“This year I am a part of the school’s literary magazine, Crooked Hands, and I submitted a short story that I wrote,” she says.
Studying abroad allows students to mature by learning a new language and going through different struggles or milestones without someone holding their hand.
Photo courtesy of Peri Forbes
When she’s not at school or studying, Forbes is very much a typical New Albany teenager. She says she enjoys Founders Day because it’s the only time of the year she can eat fried Oreos, and she loves the parade and rides. She also enjoys eating at Mellow Mushroom.
This fall, Forbes will attend The Ohio State University at Newark, and she plans to eventually attend American University to major in international studies with a minor in creative writing. After that, she has her sights set high.
“My real goal is to work at the United Nations,” she says.
While life in New Albany affords students and residents many extraordinary opportunities, Forbes knows firsthand that there is an even bigger world outside of the white fences.
“In this day and age, it is becoming more obvious that we are a global society, and in order to come together and grow, we need to understand one another,” says Forbes. “It was an amazing opportunity to connect with people all around the world and discover more about myself.”
Bob Valasek is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at adeperro@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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