Mariano Azurduy Castellanos:

One of our four foreign exchange students, Mariano Azurduy from Tarija, Bolivia(South America) explains why the exchange program caught his eye. “I mainly wanted to learn more English.” He talks about how there are differences in our education systems. For example, in his home country, he only has classes in the morning and has lunch with his family. After that, he has piano, swim, and English lessons. He also explains how teachers move to and from classrooms instead of students. He was very surprised by the size of the school and how sports are a part of high school. He is on the tennis team now and later plans to join the swim team. Mariano was truly surprised by how things are here, but he is enjoying meeting new people and making friends.

Vanessa Barth:

Vanessa Barth is our sophomore foreign exchange student from Germany. She was surprised by how friendly everyone is. “In Germany, people aren’t usually friendly to new people only to people they know.” She was also surprised by the fact we only have one break during the day and it’s only 30 minutes long. Vanessa seems to be liking Columbus High and has found friends on the cross country team. Speaking of cross country, Vanessa had never done anything like it before. “I took a chance and tried a new thing.” She was surprised at how many different things there are here. She said the food is a new thing; many of the brands are different than the brands you typically see in Germany. She seems  genuinely excited about coming to school here and getting to know more people.

Vasco Citta:

Senior Vasco Citta is from the beautiful city of Milan, Italy. He heard about the exchange program from old friends of his. “I wanted to do it to get better at my english, and try something new.” You can catch Vasco on the football field this year. Since they don’t have the sport in Italy, he saw it as a chance to try something new. “My main focus is on football, coming here was the first time I played football.”  Vasco was surprised by how many cornfields and fields of cattle we have here in Nebraska, but he is slowly getting used to it.

Roberto Castellano:

Senior Roberto Castellano is from Brescia, Italy. “The people are friendly and everybody is kind,” said Roberto. He decided to join the exchange program to see what the American life is like, and to improve his English. Roberto has been swimming for 8 years, and he is looking forward to joining the swim team. Although Roberto is still getting used to the cold weather, he seems to be liking Columbus High School quite a lot.