When people think high school, they think football games, AP classes, school dances, marching band.

One of the key components of high school, however, is exchange students.

Whether you are one, or are hosting one, or are friends with one, everyone is impacted by the foreign exchange program sometime in their high school career.

Currently, Kingston High School is proud to have students representing Italy, Germany, Thailand, China, Japan, Brazil, Slovakia, Mongolia and Norway.

These students bring the school a new culture, adding much-needed diversity to the student body — both in ethnicity and in thought.

Often, it is easy to get caught up in the world of high school and we forget the bigger picture — that there is a whole world out there beyond the track and tennis courts and weight room.

As we hear their tales of home and witness their reaction to our perplexing culture, we — and they — are reminded there is more than one way of life, and each one just as fascinating as the last.

Elena Camerini, our exchange student from Italy, describes the experience as “literally changing the way you think.”

This statement couldn’t be more true.

As a recently returned exchange student from Chile myself, I feel as if my view of the world has been forever broadened.

The simple act of sharing cultures and values with the people around you is such an eye-opening experience, and the friendships you make in the process stay with you forever.

As proof to this, several of our exchange students at KHS have stayed in contact with us.

Just last June, two exchange students from the preceding year came back to KHS for their friends’ graduation.

Countless others have come back to visit the home of the Buccaneers, for while from different places and different cultures, we are all Buccaneers forever at heart.

Go Bucs!

­—Martha Rabura is a senior at Kingston High School. Contact her at martharabura@centurylink.net.