While most seniors  are enjoying their last year and final year in high school,senior Lindsey Cottle is planning on leaving Austin to spend her second semester with a host family in France. Cottle’s love of France started to blossom when she got the opportunity to go on a school trip.

“I have been on two trips out of the country. They were both with school programs and I went with teachers for educational purposes and I went to France both times,”   Cottle said. “The second trip I went to other places too, but every time I just kinda fell in love with the language and the culture.”

She got the idea to spend a year abroad in France from one of her most influential teachers.

“My freshman year my French teacher Madam Michelle  Shadwick talked about how she graduated early and did a study abroad trip and that really inspired me and I kind of always had that in the back of my head as something that I’m interested in,” Cottle said.

Cottle’s French teachers have been encouraging her to take advantage of this opportunity because they believe it will be an incredible experience for her.

“All my teachers have been hugely influential for me, my French teachers especially Madam Michelle  Shadwick and Madam Rachel Tennen were the teachers that I had the longest,” Cottle said. “They were very close to me, I started to think of them as almost friends because they were just really great mentors and they gave great advice and encouraged me and told me that this was such an amazing opportunity  and to go for it.”

Throughout Cottle’s French language education, her teacher,  Tennen has acted as a very supportive consultant.

“I do everything I can to nurture students’ interest in travel and studying abroad, because studying abroad in college was one of the most enriching experiences of my own education,” Tennen said. “When Lindsey was raising funds for one of her trips, I bought two t-shirts from her, and my mom bought one as well. I also had the opportunity to help her with recommendations, which I was happy to do because she’s an excellent student, and I’m excited to learn more about her experiences.”

Her background as the president of the French club is going to come in very handy when she moves to France .

“I’ve been taking French as a language throughout high school and so I have kinda always knew I wanted to do something related to that ,” Cottle said. “So I’m hoping I can do like a language immersion program in order to become fluent in French and learn more about the culture and incorporate that into my career.”

Cottle has been working so incredibly hard the past few years in order to graduate early.

“I had to load up on a lot of the required classes like earlier in high school so I took all of my science and math and stuff like throughout the first three years,” Cottle said. “This year all I need to graduate is government economics and English 4 so those are pretty easy to get out of the way.”

Cottle is so dedicated and committed on going to France that she found a way to finish out a normally two semester class in one semester.

“I’m taking the second half of English on-line at the same time as the first half which is kind of crazy,” Cottle said.

Cottle  has been planning on transferring any possible college credits she accumulates in French schools to the college of her choice so she can have an even greater head start at the college of her choice.

“ I don’t plan on attending college in Europe, so after this I’m hoping to transfer those credits to an American university and do the normal four years and start at the same time that I would have if I had just graduated in the summer,” Cottle said.

Cottle is still a bit nervous about leaving her family and friends and experiencing the culture shock from flying so far overseas and leaving Austin for a whole semester.

“I’ve been away from [my family] before but I’ve always lived here so I’ve always had the same group of people so that’s gonna be hard,” Cottle said. “I think I’m also going to miss the comfort of those people so if like being familiar with the people and streets and the restaurants and the language and just kind of feeling safe.”

Cottle and her sister are b very close so spending these months apart is going to be a bit difficult.

“I’m kind of nervous, I mean I’ve been doing pretty good so far with [Lindsey at school] because she has been helping me around,” freshman Madeline Cottle said.  “Without her here it’s gonna be really weird, she’s just always around. We are really close so we see each other all the time so it’s going to be really hard.”

Even though this unique situation has been stressful  for Lindsey’s whole family, her parents have managed to find a way to make this difficult transition easier.

“Everyone is really supportive but it’s kind of a bittersweet thing,” Lindsey said. “My parents, of course, are nervous for safety stuff, but they’re doing a very good job of kind of keeping that under control and just trying to be happy for me.”

Overall, Lindsey has been so grateful she has had the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Any experience like this would have a huge impact on anyone’s life, you are growing in maturity and in  knowledge of the world and new people and all of that kind of stuff,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey aspires to have a career in a travel agency so she can be able to explore the world.

“Specifically, I am hoping to work for a travel company or a city abroad company like the kind I have traveled with. I want to work for them so I think having this experience would help me on that path and would help me kind of be better prepared for it,” Lindsey said. “Especially now more than in the past, being aware of all the world instead of where you are is a really big deal so having that experience could be key to future employment opportunities. “

Lindsey is so excited to be getting this extraordinarily rare chance to live her dream and explore her favorite country in the world.

‘I’m looking forward to the language learning, [it’s] such a fascinating thing that people communicate in a completely different language,” Lindsey said. “I’m pretty excited to have my eyes opened to that and be able to communicate with a whole new population of people and learn about their culture and their slang.”