Studying abroad, that seems fairly far fetched? Could you imagine the trouble you’d have to go through? Leaving your parents and family behind, having to cope with a foreign language day in, day out.

Still, it appears that a lot of students prefer studying abroad, but does it really have that many advantages?

As an introduction into the different possibilities when you’re searching for a study, the english-ib classes were payed a visit by two exchange students from the US, Melissa Lo and Kelly Lupas.

Melissa Lo is a 29 year old student that has come to visit Holland for her research of the 17th century physicists. She studies 17th century science, and is particularly interested in the way different artists depict science in their paintings.

Melissa was born in Santa Monica, California, which is on the west coast of the US. For her study Melissa travelled all over the US. From east to west and back. That seems like a lot of trouble, but Melissa has no regrets. Melissa loves hiking in the mountains which is weird because she is afraid of heights, and enjoys playing waterpolo. The only thing she doesn’t like about Holland is that there are no mountains here. She also sometimes practices yoga to relax, and she loves tv shows like: “parks and recreation” and ”community”.

Kelly Lupas is in Holland for another reason. She has a bachelor in biology and is mainly interested in the function of the brain. She is here to research children with a very well-known affliction, namely ADHD, attention deficit hyperactive dissorder. For this research she looks at brain activity in normal children and children with ADHD, and then she looks at the brain activity using an fMRI machine.

For her primary school and college, she lived in Chardon, Ohio. Which is in the north of the USA. And afterwards she went to Ohio university. When she finished her study, she went to work as a nurse in the mountains of Mexico, and at an orphanage for HIV positive children in Honduras.

Kelly loves doing drama: performing, singing and dancing. Also she nearly has a black belt in tai quando. Furthermore she likes painting, baking and decorating cakes.

Not only America, but a lot of countries including Holland, support students to study abroad. The government sponsers a program that allows 25 dutch students a year, to go study in any country, while all expenses are payed by the government. It is certainly, a unique experience and both Melissa and Kelly would recommend it.

Tuesday the 22nd of November Kelli Lupas visited the Philips van Horne. She comes from the United States of America and is visiting the Netherlands for research. She came to our school to tell the students here something about herself.

Kelli comes from the North of Ohio. There she went to a small high school, called Chardon High School, containing mainly famers’ children. High school in the U.S.A. is quite different from the high school here. There it’s for teenagers from the age of 14 until the age of 18. There are no levels, however there are honors’ classes for those who wish to follow more difficult classes.

In her free time at high school she also had a few hobbies. She did a lot of drama, but also singing and dancing.

In high school she also went to Mexico and Honduras to be a nurse for children, but also to be a teacher. She taught biology and chemistry there.

After high school she went to college, the university of Ohio. Again, there are many differences with Dutch universities. One of many is that at the end of high school, students take tests (e.g. SAT and ACT), on which the admission of universities is based. On the scores of these tests is also based how much money you will get for your college time.

At university she got a bachelor in biology.

Now, Kelli lives in the Netherlands and is doing research on children with ADHD. The main goal of the research is to find out the differences in the brain between children with and without ADHD. To do this, she uses an F-MRI scan, this scan finds out what happens in the brain of a child when they get a reward. A few characteristics of children with ADHD are that they’re very impulsive, hyperactive and have a hard time focusing.

Finally, she also has hobbies. She does Tae Kwando and nearly has the black belt! Furthermore, she loves baking, decorating cakes and also painting.

Text by Eline Berger