Why would someone participate in a exchange program

Hello,

For the people that are reading this and are wondering why someone would actually participate in a exchange program better yet a global exchange program when they could have successfully completed their studies at their home institution, to them I would like explain why I did it.

Firstly, it was the challenge

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” 
― Winston Churchill

I have never been away from my family, not for a long period of time and not a long distance away. Culturally I am very family oriented, we act as a single entity that appreciate each other for everything and I believe it was hard for both me and my family to do this exchange but this will give me a chance to learn to be independent in case I need to do this in the future for professional or other reasons. I believe my family will cope with it as well.

I will also have to adjust to place I am in (Odense, Denmark), the social customs and school will be different and since I have never been to Europe before this will surely be a new experience but being in Toronto for most of life will help because I have adapted myself to multiple cultures and it probably isn’t going to be too different here.

This experience will help me

“The only source of knowledge is experience” – Albert Einstein

I am sure this experience will help me in many ways, I first saw the Global Experience Office flyer the first day of the Winter 2012 semester and completely ignored it until a week passed and I had nothing better to do then to read it. After I found out what it was for and where I could get more information I searched the college to find Global Experience Office. Why you ask? Well that summer one of my best friends just came back from a exchange trip to Singapore and I could tell he was different. He saw and experienced things he just would not in Canada, it changed his prospective on a lot of things and I wanted just the same.

Our world is very globalized, we can constantly access information for all over the world and it is a necessity to be able to communicate with others from different continents. This experience will not only help me u

nderstand how to do that but also master it which will not only in my profession as a engineer but also in social situations.
Thank you for reading this, hopefully this will answer some of your questions on the opinions I expressed as I am sure there are many other wonderful reasons to participate in a program like this.I will meet people and see places that I may have never done if it wasn’t for the push of this exchange. Sure I could have traveled but how many times do you really get to experience living in a country you may not permanently reside in? And in my program you usually do not get this opportunity often so I took it while I could and I don’t regret it.

Written by: Hamza N.