A girl walks down the halls of Randall High School, just one person in a sea of over 1000 students. She looks a little lost, like maybe it’s her first time at the school. Thoughts of crashing ocean waves and forests that stretch on for miles fill her head. It is comforting to think of her home in such an unfamiliar environment.

This girl is Carla Rosendo Santome. She is a junior at Randall High School this year, and a foreign exchange student from Spain.  The foreign exchange program allows students to go and experience life in a different country for a year. Typically, students will stay with a host family, who provide housing, food, and anything else the student may need or want.

Many of the students in the foreign exchange program pay to go, but this was not the case with Carla.

“I am not a ‘normal’ exchange student,” said Carla. “I got a scholarship. I didn’t pay for this…I had to do an exam, and then if you pass that exam, they choose the best scores.”

Most of us are used to working and driving ourselves places by the time we’re 16, but in Spain, things are much different.

“People don’t work in Spain when you’re a teenager!” Carla laughed. “Everything starts until you’re 18, like I can’t drive until I’m 18.”

Probably the most drastic difference between life in Amarillo and life in Spain is education. While we take the same classes day after day, Spain students are taught a total of 13 subjects compared to our 4, and they do not attend the same classes every day.

“There’s a big difference,” Carla said. “You have to change classes, we don’t. And the teachers change, and you’re with the same people everyday. You have one class, and the teachers change. You can choose your subjects, we don’t. You have more writing stuff like English and essays and all of that, homework.”

While some of us find it daunting trying to pick which extracurriculars and clubs we want to be a part of, students in Spain don’t have that option at all.

“We don’t have choir, theatre, or arts,” Carla explained. “We don’t have sports in school. You can play sports, but you have to play outside of school.”

Picking up and moving somewhere completely new would be intimidating for everyone, but Carla is adapting to the change very well, as she is apart of the school musical The Wizard of Oz and is also a choir member.

“I felt overwhelmed, I wanted a change and I always wanted to come to the United States,” Carla said. “I would just dream about it and now I’m here.”