during my exchange year i had a surgery and here are the photos of that surgery
when it comes to exchange there is something that most of the exchange
students don't tell you so today i'm gonna spill all of the tea about student exchange
hi guys it's me jody today we're gonna talk about my exchange year even though we're like 255k
family i don't really talk about my personal things and whenever i talk about my personal
things people really enjoy it so today here we are i'm going to talk a little bit about
my exchanger my exchange year was wild but before talking about the wild stories let's talk about
the program itself so this video is not sponsored at all but why if you if you're down to sponsor me
please sponsor me i went to exchange to germany to be specific to berlin for six months they had
two options for whole year and then six months but i was too late to apply for a whole year exchange
so i decided to apply for six month exchange i went to exchange with a exchange program called
via view youth for understanding but there were so many friends of mine who went there with afs
and other other like exchange programs i mean i don't have any bias about the exchange programs
but people who went with five view were pretty satisfied with it you can give it a shot so would
i recommend yes let's talk about the application process so who can go to exchange your application
process differs from country to country in turkey like for students who are going to exchange from
turkey the application process was really basic you can literally choose whatever country you
want to go and there are like some documents that they want some countries need like a
language certificate in order to go to that country so you gotta take that certificate
etcetera but really the first it really depends on your home country as well i talked with my
five few japan friends and the application process is much like complicated than the via view turkey
so it really differs so i can't really say anything but when it comes to yfu turkey
it's really chill you can literally pick wherever you want to go and you can go also when it comes
to the money there are scholarships i went to germany and for germany there was a scholarship
which one of my best friends got they give like a pretty high scholarship if you are worried about
the money you can apply for the scholarship so apply for a scholarship but when it comes
to six month exchange programs like i did there is no scholarship so be careful for that so now
let's talk about the exchange exchange student exchange even though it seems like super fun
super cool all day partying not really studying at all and stuff it's not the truth it's actually
really hard the feeling of being alone being away from your home country from your home culture
and being in a country and culture that is totally different from you is really difficult especially
if you're not mixed or if you're not an immigrant who grew up in a different culture it's going to
be much harder for you for me i always experience cultural differences in japan i'm a foreigner in
turkey i'm a foreigner there is no home for me i always feel alone which is which sounds really sad
but it's the truth if you're immigrant child or if you're a mixed kid you probably experienced that
when you go to another country they don't accept you if you go to another country they say that
they're like the other country so there will be always someone else that's going to discriminate
you that's how i grew up even though i felt this discrimination when i was growing up exchange
was still hard for me so i can't even imagine the kids who grew up in a monocultural country
experiencing that cultural difference being alone for the first time in their life i can't imagine
it and most of the people were really struggling i struggled too but i was lucky because my
host family and host family's friends were super super nice to me but most of the students really
struggled with that you know when talking about alone i had a cruciate ligament surgery during my
exchange year we went for a ski to austria with my host family um it was around like third week
of my exchange or something i fell off and then i got a surgery when you enter exchange program you
have to pay for your insurance and i had insurance therefore i didn't pay anything for the surgery
but i literally had a surgery y'all during my exchange year nobody had surgery i was the only
one who had surgery during the exchange year i couldn't walk i used like those sticks for i guess
three or four months or so i did a rehab and it was really hard but at that time because i was
in my honeymoon phase which is the face that is called you're like literally in your honeymoon in
your brain you're kind of like high everything is new to you everything is nice and fun and you know
you're just like in that state so it happened in that like honeymoon phase luckily so when during
your exchange your your parents cannot visit you it's not allowed but like some parents visit their
child while like breaking the rules probably in my case my family were allowed to come because it's
just like a you know because it's a extraordinary situation so probably my family were allowed to
come but i didn't want them to come i wanted to you know experience this by myself because i
believe that if i would experience this by myself and figure out what to do what not to do by myself
i felt like i can grow so much and i can be more independent i told my family to like please do
not come i can handle this by myself so i was like literally begging my family to not to come because
i really looked this situation in a positive way i felt oh you know i'm aspiring doctor and i can
feel from the first hand the patient situation in a hospital if i would experience this in like
abroad as a patient i feel like it would give me the feeling of a patient what would patients feel
what would patients love and i was really thinking in a positive way i had my surgery and then i had
to like stay at a hospital for four days or something i couldn't walk at the beginning it
was like really hurting even laying was hurting and i used like for two days or so what is this
wheelchair and then i use like these arm sticks and stuff and i also had to always like what is
that like kind of lick thing which doesn't allow me to do more than like 60 degree angles and stuff
you know i did a lot of like things but at that time i was really enjoying that because you can
see the whole process the operation you know system and rehabilitations and stuff i really
enjoy it but i was looking in a very positive way and that was probably why i really enjoyed my like
surgery time a lot of people say that you can't change the past but i don't think that that's true
we can change the past by giving positive or negative meanings to them i think that's why even
though there is a one history there are different historians and there are different histories
because they give different meanings to the exact same thing that happened so we can change the
history in my opinion and that's what exactly i did i looked in a very positive way therefore the
struggles that most of the people would say was not struggles to me it was just a fun experience
that would probably never happen in my life and since i'm an exchanger like having a surgery
wouldn't affect me that much but if that would happen in my academic year i think that would
totally like you know make my life shitty so i'm glad that it happened in my exchanger you know my
host family was really great but i was really lucky a lot of people had problems with their
house family i heard a couple of people changing their house family because they had problems but
when you have a problem with host family you gotta find a new host family by yourself at least that's
what fire fear rule is i didn't have any problems with my host family they were super nice their
friends were nice i really really love my host family i love them so much like really great from
bottom of my heart but i think it also depends on you as well if you just went to exchange for
partying and not really talking with your host family not trying to understand the other culture
and not communicating of course they're not gonna like you so it's important to have communication
between of you you know you gotta make effort in order to like them and so that they can make the
effort as well they are the one that you know just allowing you to stay at their home they are giving
you food shelter also different opportunities so always be grateful for them you're not
in the like equal situation in order to be in an equal situation because they give you food
and house and you know a lot of opportunities you gotta give a good communication to them so that
you can maintain a good relationship at least i was trying my best to understand their culture
and bring my culture and you know communicate it's really really important i've seen so many exchange
students not really caring about their host family not like acting them kind enough respectful enough
it's not only host's family's fault of course there are like some host families that were
horrible yes but that very like extraordinary most of the time it depends on the two sides so
my recommendation is just keep a good communication respect the other person super super
super difficult to find a friend it's super hard because german people are not like so cheerful
friendly as turkish people japanese people are more shy so if you would go to them they would
talk to you and stuff but german people i was shocked i was shocked the cultural difference
y'all in turkey when somebody like comes to your school comes your class if she or he or whatever
pronouns they use um comes to that class at least like couple of people would come to you and say hi
like how are you who are you where are you coming from and stuff but in germany it doesn't happen
and most of my friends were like alone and couldn't find german friends they were friends
with other international students in my case at that time kpop was think it's still thing i know
that but at that time i was listening kpop too so that really helped me to connect with koreaboos
to find friends and stuff so i didn't have any problems with that but it was basically because
of my looks because i look asian as [ __ ] and they were like some like koreaboos it really
helped me but otherwise other exchange students couldn't find friends and the only friends that
they found was international friends but i heard that the people who went exchange to the us
find really good friends even like relationships and stuff so it really differs country to country
but if you're going to germany don't expect people to come to you and be nice to you
and be friends with you german people are i think more distant when it comes to friendship
because their friendship is kind of different it takes time to build but it lasts for a very long
time you know it's just a cultural difference i'm not saying which one is better or something
it really depends on the country i think you gotta just like adjust yourself for that but for
the majority of your exchanger the truth is you're gonna be alone you're gonna be alone prepare for
that okay so another difficulty is that language is hard even though before going to germany like
for exchange my german was like super good because german was my favorite subject at school and at
that time we had our like teacher german teacher our teachers were german i didn't not like a crush
but i admired him so so much i wanted to talk to him so badly that every single day i was going
home and studying german for multiple hours in order to talk to him explain to him understand him
i was studying multiple hours you're all and it was not like something like crush
or relationship way it was just like a pure pure you know what what is that pure love pure
admiration towards my teacher that i had back in the day and that really helped me so i was
really good at german even though i was one of the best students in german classes like entire
year it was really difficult because native speakers talk very fast and they use a lot of
slangs that i didn't know because they don't teach slangs in schools and i didn't know that and a lot
of people were doing grammar mistakes that we don't learn in school you know when i talk in
turkish or japanese i do a lot of grammar mistakes and slangs and you know i really talk differently
when you compare to those like textbooks so it was super difficult for me to understand and also
my host family had friends in australia and they have a austrian german like accent
i couldn't understand it at the beginning but at the end of my like exchanger i was easily able
to understand the accent it takes a lot of time but during my exchanger i was studying german at
least two hours a day in order to make my german better and that really helped and i was also
talking to my host family quite a lot and they were really helping with that as well so language
is hard a lot of my friends went to germany without knowing german but at the end of the year
they were able to talk german but the ones that were best in the group were the ones that studied
regularly every single day and put the work in you know the ones who didn't study and only like
learned from the environment weren't that good so in order to become a good in that language
during your exchanger you gotta work first you gotta work [ __ ] another problem is that food
problem of course the culture of food is really different going for an exchange my host family
especially my host dad was really into cooking which i really liked we used to like cook every
single day after school and we used to eat like really delicious food which i enjoyed but when i
asked to my other exchange friends they were not like that they were literally eating like every
single day bread and that was it so it really depends where you go but if you're like going
for an exchange in germany be ready for breads and potatoes because they eat a lot but my host
family was really good at cooking we cooked a lot and that also really helped for our communication
as well and we had a fun you know i was really lucky i'm a lucky girl for majority of the people
especially if you are not open to new foods you're gonna struggle quite a lot so another difficulty
when it comes to exchange is that during the year you change a lot i gained a lot of confidence
i became much independent i think i became quite liberal and it just like changes the whole way you
think changes your personality and things that you experience builds up your like new personality and
when you go back your friends your family were not able to understand you because they were not there
and you changed a lot you know what you experienced but they haven't seen you like
for a year for six months and they don't know what happened because they don't know the between story
they can't understand you and a lot of people had problems with friendships and families and stuff
an exchange program at least five you said us that you're gonna have a lot of problems
when you come back because everybody has it everybody changes and your family expects
you to be old you but you are new you you know when it comes to my friendships i said
you know one of my best friends went to germany to foreign exchange as well so it wasn't a big deal
for me yes i changed but because my friends also changed it wasn't a big deal for me i said 100
times i was so so lucky your exchange year can be really fun but at the same time if it goes wrong
it can suck so much you gotta be really careful you gotta give effort to get to know people
to sustain it at a great level and you have to care about your mental health because
it's hard it's so freaking hard but at the end of the day it's an awesome experience that you can
ever have and that you would never forget it's one of the best experiences that i had in my life and
people who went to exchange and people who didn't you can clearly see the difference the maturity
of people who want the exchange is insane it's taught you so many things you learn a lot about
relationships friendships about different cultures and foods and different people your like mine
expands quite a lot that's why i want to go to go for an exchange during my uni year as well because
i gotta learn and meet with a bunch of people who i would never ever ever get to know in turkey or
germany that's why i want to live in other country other than japan or turkey because they're both
in my comfort zone and getting outside of your comfort zone is an amazing thing yes it is scary
that's for sure but when you experience like new things your mind broadens so so much and the way
you think the way you pursue things gonna change so much and it's an amazing amazing experience i
really want to go for an exchange once more if you are a parent or if you're a kid go for an exchange
you might regret it i'm not gonna lie if you experience something really really bad you might
regret it but for the majority of the people no matter what happens most of the people are really
happy with their exchanger and i would highly highly recommend it thank you for watching i hope
you go for an exchange and i hope you will have an amazing year let me see in my next videos bye