Ever wonder what it’s like to travel across the globe? To put aside every fear and willingly leave the comforts of home in order to meet foreign people in a foreign land? Well so did Lucia Deffontaine who’s a French foreign exchange student here at Liberty North! She came here to experience “the typical American neighborhood” and learn about the lives of others in a different culture!

“I wanted to be in the typical American neighborhood I was really happy when I heard I was going to Missouri because it was right in the middle! I’m actually living with a Mexican host family, which is awesome because I’m covering a mixture of two different cultures at the same time” senior Lucia Deffontaine said.

Although shes’s far from home, Lucia recognized similarities in entertainment for teenagers today from around the world.

“The obsession with pop culture is the same; we listen to the same music and watch the same movies. I think Americans sometimes don’t understand; we don’t watch French movies or music we listen to American stuff” Deffontaine said.

However, as expected, she encountered many unfamiliar American concepts as well, including mindset.

“The state of mind is different; teenagers in France are obsessed with work and schoolwork and homework; and Americans are not as worried they’re just like ‘Well, I’ll get a sports scholarship’ or ‘Oh yeah, I like school, but I like music too.’ Americans have more interests other than school” Deffontaine said.

The past couple months have been a life-changer for Lucia and she is so glad she decided to take a couple MILLION steps out of her comfort zone to come to the United States as an exchange student.

“It’s the best thing; you not only get a perspective on someone else’s culture, you get a perspective on your whole life. You really figure out who you are because you’re in a foreign country, you don’t know anybody, and you don’t have a choice other than to be yourself. There’s no one telling you who you have to be or what you have to do so you get to be who you are and see how your culture really is because you have something to compare it to. It changes your life. I’m not the same person who came here” Deffontaine said.