An International Student’s Experience of Attending a Boarding School

    For most international students, our reason for studying abroad in the United States, Canada, the U.K., or other western countries is to pursue a higher level of education and life experience that is different from that of our home country. But for many of us, our journey started before attending university or grad school. What many people don’t know is that there are a good number of international students who have started their study abroad experience before they even turned sixteen! Parents would send their children to boarding schools in the West to jump-start their study abroad experiences, in hopes of giving them an advantage in getting into more prestigious universities in the future. Specifically in the U.S., international students can only attend private schools, in which many are boarding schools. The boarding life is very convenient for international schools that are miles and miles away from home. Furthermore, these boarding schools offer rigorous academics combined with a wide variety of extracurricular activities that help international students adjust to the American culture and lifestyle. In all, going to a boarding school as an international student is truly a unique experience and, for the lack of terms, only happens once in a lifetime. 

    I attended an American boarding school before attending the University Of California - Santa Barbara. As I was stepping into my Junior year of high school, my parents and I made a collective decision to enroll me in boarding school. It was a very big change for me and the beginning of a new chapter of my life. As the junior year began, I was now going to school in the middle of Pennsylvania, two hours outside of Pittsburgh, moving into my dorm to meet my new roommate. In other words, it was a big one-eighty for me socially, academically, and personally. Throughout my two years of boarding school, I’ve made many friends both just like me and different from me. I’ve encountered teachers who later became mentors. I’ve experienced an educational system that is different from one that I’m used to. As an international student, experiencing a boarding school life allowed me to grow up very quickly. On top of learning to live in a new environment, I was also learning to live independently, I was doing laundry, cleaning, and cooking, all for myself. In all, going to a boarding school as an international student allowed me to grow both personally and academically. I became self-reliant and it was a very empowering experience. On top of that, I was also able to meet people from all over the world just like me. I was also learning to develop a global perspective and an appreciation for culture, both others and my own. Furthermore, my boarding experience as an international student helped me learn how to adapt to different environments quickly. For example, in college, I got along with my roommates very well and this is mainly because I have lived through dorm life before. I was also able to excel and fill in with leadership roles at internships or extracurricular activities in college because I’ve experienced working with groups of diverse people throughout my high school career. This is due to the nature of the boarding school life where I got to meet people from all over the world. 

    In all, going to a boarding school is an adventure, and a once in a lifetime opportunity to not receive a world-class education, but to learn about myself as a person. If I can give a one-sentence review, attending a boarding school outside of my own country is an ideal way to provide life skills for my life for the better. I am forever thankful for my boarding school experience as it has allowed me to become the person that I am today while I continue my journey in university.