The first time I left the country, I went to Liverpool, UK. It felt like going to the moon. Some of my colleagues in international education think it’s funny when Americans talk about traveling to another part of the English-speaking or developed world as so eye-opening, but it was for me. I’m a second-generation American and I am the first and only person in my family to attend college. I studied at California Lutheran University, which was 23 miles from the house I grew up in. I was able to do so because of a federal program that supported matriculation for first-gen, low-income college students called TRiO. The TRiO staff encouraged me to apply to go to the University of Liverpool and when I shared that finances were why I could not apply, they found me a scholarship.

This past July, I went on exchange again, but not as an exchange student. This time I was an “exchange employee” to American Councils’ office in Armenia.

Growing up in the capital city of Macedonia, Emir Hasanovic learned about America through pop culture and Hollywood. When he applied for the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program in 2008, social media did not have the same level of prominence that it does today. After he was accepted, he imagined how his American story would unfold.

Zana was part of the inaugural group of Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program students from Kosovo in 2009. Today, she continues to apply the lessons she learned during her YES year.