Excitement rose as the plane took off from France to America. Eva Clarisse is a foreign exchange student from France who currently attends Bowie and will be enrolled at Bowie till June. Eva has had many highs and lows this semester so far and she has been more than willing to share her experience with us.
“First I pre-registered in April 2023 for the program. From that moment on, my parents started paying [$13,000] every month for my year”, junior Eva Clarisse said. “My French organization [JEVlangues] sent me my registration form in August 2023, there was a large section on my tastes and extracurricular activities, then this file was verified by my French organization and by my American organization [Cetusa].”
After a foreign exchange student’s forms get verified, they get assigned to a host family. Unfortunately, Clarisse had a stressful first experience with her first host family. Luckily, she had the opportunity to change families later on in the process.
“All this preparation and waiting for the host family was very stressful,” Clarisse said. “Little by little I felt worse with my host family because things weren’t going well. The house was very dirty and I felt I was in this family just to babysit… but luckily my family in France had contacts and they were able to find me a new family here in Austin!”
Clarisse’s full circle moment finally happened when she stepped out of the plane and realized that her dream was finally coming true.
“I’ve been dreaming about this exchange program in the USA for 5 years. The first few days when I arrived I was extremely happy. I was finally in the US to make my dream come true,” Clarisse said. “My best memory is probably when I stepped out of the airport and felt the warm, humid air of Texas.”
Along with Clarisse’s trip she has had many learning experiences and opportunities which have been very useful to her. Clarisse could not be more grateful to experience these experiences and ways of American culture.
“Every day I discover new things about American life and culture, and I’m improving my English! I’m lucky to have an amazing host family and a lot of friends,” Clarisse said. “In America, high school is really easy and what I love most is the importance of sports and the importance of supporting your school. The atmosphere at American soccer matches is incredible!”
As much as Clarisse appreciated certain aspects of American culture she felt as if the aspects of French culture such as food, ecology, and laws are better and she would never choose to move to America permanently.
“I don’t think I’ll ever settle in the US. There are lots of things I love about America, but there are also things that make me not want to live here permanently.” Clarisse said. “Also in France, the food is of better quality: it’s less fatty, less sweet, less salty, and the eating hours are better than in America, in my opinion.”
Although Clarisse felt as if she would never want to move to America permanently, she still loves and is planning on taking many aspects of the culture to her home country and family.
“I’m going to make lots of tacos when I get back to France, here I eat them very often. I’m also going to try to celebrate Thanksgiving in France with my parents and my brother,” Clarisse said. “And I’m definitely going to put up more decorations for the holidays, because in France, few houses are decorated.”
Clarisse could not be more excited to eventually see her family again in June but there are lots of experiences, places, and people she will very deeply miss from Bowie.
“What I’ll miss when I leave high school in America, high school is really easy and what I love most is the importance of sports and the importance of supporting your school. The atmosphere at American soccer matches is incredible,” Clarisse said. “I’m really lucky because at Lycee Bowie there are lots of exchange students and it makes it easier to make friends.”
Clarisse’s journey has been nothing but thrilling, interesting, and fun and she hopes to remember these lifelong experiences forever and inspire different people to try new things.
