By Hazel Hurlbut 

   Would you be scared to live thousands of miles away from home? Sanju isn’t! This semester Tempe Prep has welcomed Sanju, a foreign exchange student from Malaysia. 

   Sanju is visiting through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program., which works to send students from countries with significant Muslim populations to live and study abroad in the United States. Sanju decided she wanted to experience a new environment so she applied to study abroad in the United States. Sanju says “it [the application] was challenging, and it was very competitive.”

   Sanju is enjoying Arizona so far, and she says “everyone is really nice, and friendly.” She says she really appreciates the friendliness and help. Sanju finds the United States to be “really different” from Malaysia. One interesting cultural difference Sanju noticed was that “Americans value punctuality” more than they do in Malaysia.

   Sanju has also found school here in the U.S. to be very different. In her home country, she did not switch classes throughout the day, but stayed in one classroom. As a result Sanju didn’t have passing periods, which she really likes. She thinks it’s “really nice to just walk around from one place to another and not sit in one class.” 

   Sanju is also adjusting to the length of school here. In Malaysia, Sanju had school for 5 hours instead of 7. 

   She has also really liked Humane Letters. She enjoys discussing a wide variety of topics and the emphasis on literature, which contrasts to the more STEM related subjects she studied in Malaysia. 

   Sanju says she finds that there are lots of clubs and opportunities at TPA that she can choose from. She says that in Malaysia the clubs “are limited.” Referring to TPA, she says that the“opportunities for teenagers are amazing.”

   Sanju also appreciates her host family. They have hosted a TPA foreign exchange student before, so Sanju says “they are experienced” and she thinks they are “very sweet.” Sanju says they are “very open to learning about my culture.”

   Sanju has overall really enjoyed her experience here at Tempe Prep and in the United States, and is looking forward to continuing it!