The first day of school can be difficult enough for the average American teenager. Imagine what it would be like for a student from a foreign country. This year, Neshaminy High School has the privilege to welcome two foreign exchange students.

Senior Hala Salem has come from Israel. Having watched movies, and educated herself on American culture, she is still shocked by how much diversity America has to offer. What surprised her most, however, was Neshaminy’s student body of around three thousand students.
“My school only had around 500 students,” Salem said.

The language options are also quite different here than they are in Israel. Salem has been taking Hebrew and English since the third grade, and is now fluently speaking them.
Sophomore Filip Karan came from Croatia. Although he finds American culture relatively similar to Croatian culture, he enjoys school here in America much more, with his new liberty to choose electives.

“I had 15 classes a year, so I didn’t have the same schedule every day. I couldn’t choose any of my classes,” Karan said.

Similar to Salem, Karan was offered more language options. When he had left he was taking English, German and Latin.

The opportunity for Neshaminy to welcome these new students has made it evident that although kids are primarily the same from country to country, their school experience is most certainly not. With this in mind, the Neshaminy student body welcomes Salem and Karan with open arms.