Every year, Perry Meridian offers an exchange program that allows students from foreign countries to come here to the United States and study for the year, allowing them to experience the American school system. The school also offers students the opportunity to be exchange students themselves. 

For seniors Ava Diekoff, Alexis Ellis and Autumn Hotopp, they had the opportunity to travel to Germany and be students there for three weeks during fall break. 

In order for students to qualify for the trip, they have to be one of the higher level students along with having a decent grade in the class. 

Diekoff jumped at the opportunity to be able to leave the country and be able to be a student in a foreign country. 

“I did want to get a better sense of the world outside America,” says Diekoff.

Diekoff sought to learn more and experience what it would be like to be a student in a different country. She saw the many differences and similarities between being a student here in the U.S. and being a student in Germany. 

“I think it’s important to see other parts of the world outside of where you live,” says Diekoff. 

Hoping to use German more and seeing it as a once in a lifetime opportunity for herself, Ellis jumped at the chance to go on the trip. 

“I wanted to actually see the language in context and so I was able to see how they interacted with their language,” says Ellis. 

Hotopp is passionate about learning the German language and has been debating having the language as one of her majors in college. 

She wanted to find somebody new she would be able to connect with and to be able to make new friends from out of the country.

“I wanted to go on the trip to experience the culture,” says Hotopp. “Get to see how it is and see whether I should continue with it or not.”