It’s not every day I have the opportunity to learn about someone from a different culture. This past year, we’ve had an exchange student visit HHS from Germany, and I had the pleasure of interviewing with him.

Even though I’ve been on the crew team with him since this fall, I never learned his outside perspective about what it’s like here. In order to hear about HHS from an objective point of view, I prepared some questions and set up an interview.

I first asked Anton Gräper about his overall opinion of HHS?. He responded by telling me about how he was pleasantly surprised at how open minded, friendly, and helpful his new classmates have been. He also added with a notable enthusiasm, “The whole school spirit is amazing and it is a really nice community.”

After hearing his opinion of HHS at a whole I was curious to get a closer perspective on whether there were any stark differences between German and American schools. After a conversation about some of the major educational differences between the US and Germany, I gathered this: German and American schools are similar in their content and delivery, but the format of the classes varies. At Anton’s school the occasional day is longer, sometimes from 8:00 AM all the way to 4:30 PM. Some classes are held only twice a week, but these classes are 2 hours long to make up for what would be lost time.

One major difference between the US and Germany are the sports teams. Anton told me about how in Germany, instead of having school specific teams, the teams are run by private clubs and only meet two or three times a week. He said he prefers our system over his back home, because it makes him feel more like he’s a part of the team instead of just a player if the sport.

When I asked Anton about the favorite part his day, he replied by saying, “My schedule in school is very good. I enjoy classes like woodshop and oceanography a lot because I have nothing like that in my school in Germany. Besides that I think my favorite part of the day is either to have crew practice especially when we are out on the water or just hang out with some friends.”

After hearing this I asked about his opinion of the crew team as a whole, and he said without hesitation that he is enjoying crew as much as anything else back in Germany. He says, “The people are awesome and although practice can sometimes be hard it can also be a lot of fun.” The spirit of the team makes him feel like he can count on those around him and gives him the ,motivation to keep going, even when it gets tough.

My final question I was especially curious to learn the answer. I wanted to know what his favorite memory from this year. He responded by saying that he has no one stand out memory from his time her-not because he’s bored and can’t wait to leave, but because his overall experience with the American culture and the people he’s met here have made his everyday life an adventure. He says that even though he misses his friends and family back home, he’ll miss everyone he met here, and he hopes one day to come back and visit.