December 18, 2025

I’ve had a great time in Switzerland. Before my exchange I would hear a lot of people telling me how fast it would go by and I never really realized how right they were until recently. In my mind I can’t even comprehend that I’m almost half way through my exchange. In the beginning of my exchange the time felt like it was going by normally and then once October hit, and then it was November, and then December, and now it’s almost Christmas. One of my favorite moments during this exchange was being able to celebrate Thanksgiving. In Switzerland people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but my host family thought it’d be a cool idea if we had Thanksgiving dinner. I got to invite one of my exchange friends from Idaho and some Rotarians and it was such a great experience to share a holiday that’s very important to the US. To me Thanksgiving felt like a week ago when really it almost been a whole month. Now I only have one more day until winter break which also means Christmas. Christmas in Switzerland is just so beautiful. I love how cold it gets and how almost every city has a Christmas market. So far I have been to five Christmas markets with my host family and my friends. Each one is unique in its own way but also has things that are similar. I think my favorite so far is the one in Basel. It’s pretty big and unlike Zurich it’s not very crowded. I still really like the one in Zurich it can just be overstimulating at times. Though I’m have so many great experience and making amazing memories, something I have struggled with is getting closer to Swiss people my age and spending time with them. A big reason for this is due to the school system in Switzerland. The school system here is very intense and demanding. One thing I have realized is that most of the time class work does not get graded, compared to the US where almost every piece assignment we do in class is usually graded. Instead in Switzerland students are usually only graded on projects or tests. I’d say this makes it a lot easier for Swiss students to fail a class because they only have a few things that goes to their grade and if they don’t do so well on, let’s say a test, then their over all average in the class will drastically go down. Because of the advanced school system in Switzerland, Swiss students are always studying and it makes it very hard to spend time with them. I thing must’ve asked a million times to hang out with one of my Swiss friends but I haven’t spent time with any of them out side of school once. It can be very discouraging when it feels like no one tries to put in any effort but I’m very grateful that I have my exchange student friends. I spend most of my time with them and it’s very easy to see them due to the fact Switzerland is a smaller country and has very good public transportation.