“An exchange year is the best thing you can possibly do in your life” and there is absolutely no way to make this sentence sound less cliche. Because yes, it is true. You will meet the most amazing people, in a foreign country at the point of your life, where you are the most alone. You will get the incredible chance to experience life in a different city, a different country, maybe even a different continent. But there is more behind that. An exchange year will teach you more than you ever thought were capable of learning. And I do not mean new words, of course you will learn new words, new phrases and you will experience the language in a completely different way. I mean about yourself.
No matter how scared some of us were to come here, we all made the first step by deciding we are ready, and we are brave enough to try. And this is so important to understand. Because no matter how down you felt at some point here, when everything was too much and you just missed something you could not get, you should never forget what brought you here. Because it was you. You were the one who was brave enough to try. You were the one who packed your life into a suitcase. You were the one who left everyone else behind, to meet a new version of yourself. And you are the one who is getting the universal chance to experience one of the best things in life, growing in a different country. Being far away from home, you will learn to appreciate everything, and I mean everything.
No matter if it is your way to school, your favorite food brand or the simple way of how things are organised in your bathroom. You will learn to value everything and everyone. From one moment on you are the one responsible for your actions and you will notice every single thing you do has a purpose.
An exchange year is not a year in your life, it is a life in a year. You will laugh, you will cry, you will learn how to say the most useless things in any other languages and you will step out of your comfort zone. And although an exchange year is a universal experience and different for every single one of us, we all have one thing in common. It will eventually end. Whether we want it to or not, all things must come to an end. And during your last days, you must say goodbye to something that was once so unknown, but is now so familiar. You must say goodbye to the people you did not even know a year ago, but now could not imagine life without. And you ask yourself: “That’s it?”
We all pack our bags, board our planes and continue our lives in different places? Although we all once called the same place home?” And that is the hard truth to face. That is the price you pay. An exchange year will crash all your expectations and will fulfill you with so much pride and joy, but will eventually leave a hole in your chest, because you know, these places, these people, these memories, they will never come back in this way.
But there is something else behind this sadness. Because yes, we all might leave this place, but we will never leave each other. Tiny pieces of ourselves will be taken around the world. No matter if you are aware of it or not, every single one of us brings something back home. It is in our hands to cherish every single one of our memories. Because you may leave Southampton and continue to live and grow somewhere else, but Southampton, and all the knowledge you gained, all the memories you collected, will never leave you.
And when you come back home, everything will look the same, it will even smell the same, the bed we left on our last night, our kitchen, this one smell we are used to. But something still feels different. And you will realise the one thing that changed… is you.
Emma Dreszler, Class of 2025-26
