Making friends is the best part of my exchange
It took me just a couple of weeks to get to know nice people in my school and start hanging out with them. Being so different than others made them…
Intercultural Learning
Becoming friends with people from around the world
When I first arrived, before school started, I didn’t have any friends and I couldn’t speak Italian. However, when school started I met my classmates and we became friends. At…
The importance of reciprocating volunteer efforts
Marcel Mauss, a French sociologist, wrote an essay in 1925 titled The Gift, which analyzed the role that exchange plays in building social relationships. Mauss found that despite the assumption…
100+ Years of Volunteers
AFSers around the world had a lot to be proud of on International Volunteer Day, especially since they are part of an incredible volunteer legacy stretching back more than 100…
5 things to know about study abroad today
Study abroad is an important and life-changing experience that broadens people’s horizons and helps them develop skills needed to function in a globalized world. At the end of October I…
Helping the World Learn to Live Together
Intercultural understanding is a powerful and productive tool for building a more just and peaceful world. At AFS, we are united by our commitment to our learning to live together philosophy.…
My new family in the Caribbean
I’m spending my AFS exchange in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Two and a half months just passed by without me noticing that time is running fast. I’ve been living in a…
What parenting teaches us about intercultural learning
Globalization of migration flows, shifting ideas about ethnicity and race, and intimate relations across ethnic boundaries mean that more and more of us parent children with individuals from an ethnic…
Every encounter is an intercultural experience: Linking social justice and intercultural communication
When I attended the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC) I was excited to meet likeminded people from all over the world and to gain perspective on the sheer necessity of intercultural learning…