Photo by Maddy Brown

Delia Schulte, 11, shares her experience of being a foreign exchange student from Germany.

Junior Delia Schulte takes a deep breath as she walks into her first class at Legacy High School. Everyone around her speaks English fluently and without any difficulty. This country has proven to be a lot different than her home- Germany.

“I wanted to have an experience here, to see how it really is here,” Schulte said. “I wanted to improve my English.”

Schulte, a foreign exchange student from Germany, moved to America for her junior year of high school. For the first semester of school, she attended school in Midland. However, she switched host families and came to live with another family in Mansfield.

“It is definitely different here. Texas is different than any other place I have been to. School and church are both different here than Germany,” Schulte said. “Not many people go to church in Germany; it is mostly old people on Sundays. Here the whole community is involved in church.”

In Germany, high school does not run ninth through twelfth grade. Instead, it usually goes from seventh through twelfth grade. Germany does not have school zones, so students can choose what school they want to attend.

“I like that I have a lot of choices and many electives,” Schulte said. “In general, I like the school spirit here.”

Schulte will finish her junior year at Legacy and head back to Germany during the summer.

“I’m looking forward to going back. I want to go to a different school when I get back,” Schulte said. “I learned [from this experience] about myself, how to handle situations, and social skills.”