Traveling abroad and living in a new culture is a remarkable experience.  We have seen the benefits of studying and living abroad in our alumni students. To become fluent in a language it is essential to live and interact with fluent speakers.  As a TWO WORLDS UNITED International Exchange student, you’ll gain the knowledge, skills, and insights that will prepare you to learn a foreign language and to understand a culture other than your own. Every day you’ll be learning something new - about the culture you’re living in, about the language you’re speaking, about society, music, literature, religion, art, politics, and about yourself.

School and Life integration is certainly the best way to learn a language, promote cultural understanding and tolerance. Our Student Exchange programs offer youngsters from 15 to 18 years old the opportunity to integrate into a new culture while studying in a local High School and living with a native host family.  This challenging experience can last from 2 to 11 months and allows teenagers to discover the local culture, customs and way of living.  Moreover, they become totally fluent in French. A TWU Local Coordinator supervises their integration into the local community, at school and at home.

This is the first very important step to discover new values of understanding and friendship between the peoples of the world, leading to better relationships between countries and cultures.

 Spend a high school year or semester abroad!

The daily contact with the host family results in the discovery of another way of life and different ideas, and allows students to develop strong and lasting relationships.  

TWO WORLDS UNITED Study Abroad programs provide students the opportunity to study in more than 30 countries of the world.  Academic Year and Semester Programs  »  Summer Abroad from 2 to 8 weeks  » Teacher and Student Group Programs... are available for High School Students aged between 15 and 18 years old.  Being an exchange student is a very rewarding experience, and often a life-changing one.  It often gives students the integrity they will need in their upcoming start in college.  After having made the transition into a new culture and language, students have the confidence to pursue goals and to strive to put more from themselves whatever may be the task at hand.

The benefits of Studying Abroad

Every year, thousands of students enhance their lives by studying abroad.  They gain skills they could never learn by staying home: Maturity, Self Confidence, Communicativeness, and they learn to become a global citizen, while gaining a heads up in College and a Career advantage.

When you enter in a different culture from your own, you are exposed to new sights, sounds, experiences and ideas, people and feelings. Much time is spent experiencing this “New World”. Understanding the new culture will help you to understand your own.  

Experience your new country by living its culture like a native at home with your host family

Your Education

                Your Future

TWO WORLDS UNITED Exchange Students gain skills they could never learn by staying home: Maturity, Self Confidence, Communicativeness, and they learn to become a global citizen, while gaining a heads up in College and a Career advantage

Educators, employers, parents and our alumni all agree that the benefits of International Exchange reach far beyond the year; semester or summer the student spends abroad. In fact, the experience of learning a new language, living with a host family and adapting to a new culture produces lifelong benefits.

Spending a summer, semester of year abroad will affect you in many ways. Your experiences as an exchange student will add a new dimension to your personality while learning by personal immersion in a new culture, living its daily life and being a part of a native family, their home life and customs. Most of all you get the opportunity to understand a foreign country, people of another culture and their language. What you learn will give you self-reliance when it is just you facing the world as a student, as a traveler, and in countless other experiences.

Through your student exchange experience and your host family, you will meet many new people and learn exciting new customs.  Together, you will celebrate holidays, enjoy meals and perform daily chores.  Your host family

will be an invaluable source of emotional support and practical assistance during your time abroad.  Living in the welcoming atmosphere and security of your host family, you’re sure to have the most exciting experience ever.

Life Long Friends

Some of your very strongest friendships may come from people you meet abroad.  The friends you make while studying and living abroad will always remember you.   They will introduced you to their favorite foods and take you sightseeing to their favorite places.  Just the same, you will never forget their hospitality and excitement when you arrive.

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We’ll help every step of the way 

TWO WORLDS UNITED Educational Foundation will guide you through all the steps in your experience abroad

TWO WORLDS UNITED has a network of local representatives that will help you to prepare your experience abroad step by step.  These representatives, called Student Exchange Coordinators, keep in constant touch with you and your host family during your time abroad. All TWO WORLDS UNITED Educational representatives are experienced in the fields of education and student exchange.  There are carefully trained, and have a real interest in ensuring that your experience abroad is a smooth one.  With your TWO WORLDS UNITED Educational Foundation contacts and your host family, you can start your program with the certainty of a good preparation.

Complete pre-departure preparation

Former TWO WORLDS UNITED students have told us that being well-prepared was key to a successful exchange year.  For this reason, we have developed a pre-departure process that will give you all of the information you need to have a great experience abroad.  One you complete and return the pre-application on page 14 of this brochure, we will send you a full application package and arrange for you to have an interview with one of our local representatives.  Both the application package and the interview allow us to get to know you and your family better.  This enables us to find you a suitable family in your country of choice.  It also gives you and your family a chance to ask any questions you may have about our program or your time abroad.  When you have completed the application and the interview - and have been accepted to the program - you will immediately begin to receive information regarding your host country’s school system, history, geography and culture.  Also included will be information regarding your travel plans, obtaining your visa, insurance, and other practical materials. Many students work with their schools to get full or partial credit for their classes overseas. Discuss your school requirements with your guidance counselor in your present school as soon as possible to be sure you understand your school's requirements for graduation. 

Europe

Notre Dame and the palace of Versailles, Monet and Vanessa Paradis, Paris ans Chateaux de la Loire, Mardi Gras celebrations and lively outdoor cafes...

When your host family says “bienvenue or willkommen at the airport, it will be the beginning of a great adventure.  In Europe the places have a long and rich history, beautiful landscapes, and a complex, compelling cultures. If France were simply Paris or the Côte d’Azur and Spain Madrid or Granada, it would still be an enticing destination. However, Europe is all these things and more, a profusion of many small worlds, each exploding with epiphanies of beauty, bounties of great food, and an unbelievable historic and artistic record that begins with cave painters and continues through to Picasso, to the marvelous architectural bequest of London, and the modernism of Germany.

Europe is also unique in its people. The intensely proud Dutch or Spaniards never doubt that they live at the center of the civilized world. This self-assurance can seem disconcerting to many students who skims along the surface of the culture. But after a few days in your destination country, or after a quiet tour through the provinces, it’s easier to grant the Europeans the benefit of the doubt. In fact, long after you’ve seen the museums and the monuments, you’ll find yourself wanting to return to Europe, simply to be with the European people in that sometimes peculiar parallel universe known as Europe.

Meals are an important part of your host family’s life.  Breakfast may only be a quick “tartine” (butter and jam on a baguette) on the way to school, and lunch a little something bought at a cafe.  But dinner is an important event, a chance to share the news of the day with your family over a warm meal which may last several hours.  Its great way to become part of the culture, as well as to spend time getting to know your host family.

The personality of Europe takes its strongest form beyond the capitals of each nation, in a largely rural hinterland scattered with towns and villages, and hemmed by rugged coastlines and low, rolling ranges of hills.  Europe today can provide one of most excited destinations. Although comfortable, friendly, and full of fun, Europe’s unique history and art is likely to appeal to students as a cultural and complete destination. Bucking the small villages slower-pace trend when necessary, the capitas does provide a completely modern infrastructure and comfort that make a unique experience for international students.

Students need a global perspective to succeed. TWO WORLDS UNITED Student Exchange programs in Europe bring that perspective into your everyday.  Whether your interests lie in history, economics, science or foreign language, the skills, insight and flexibility that you will gain by been an exchange student will help prepare your life in our fast-changing, multicultural world.  Picture yourself going to a soccer game, visiting a museum, exploring a castle, attending a concert, window-shopping in the busy streets or barbecuing in the mountains with your host family and new friends. Whatever your favorite activities, TWO WORLDS UNITED students will make lasting memories forever.  First and foremost, a TWO WORLDS UNITED exchange is an educational experience.  The school life of the students is nearly as important as family life.  TWO WORLDS UNITED students attend high school and often to sighting their new surroundings. For teenagers, an exchange student experience brings new perspectives to issues facing teens around the globe -- making choices for the future, shaping a better world and having a great time in the process.

Canada

Programs Abroad for Canadian students

Canadian students are eligible to participate in all TWO WORLDS UNITED programs. 

TWO WORLDS UNITED programs reach students around the world.  TWO WORLDS UNITED provides six-week, semester and year programs for Canadian high school students ages 15 to 18 years. On semester and year programs, students live with a host family and attend school in their host country.  Canadian students may choose from the same destinations available to U.S. students.  You will have the opportunity to become fluent in another language as you live the life of a teenager in your host country for either a semester. Learn a second language by studying Spanish in Spain, French in France, or choose an academic programs in English speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom.

PROGRAM FEES & CURRENCY- Program Fees listed in this catalog are listed in U.S. currency, if you are a Canadian Student and you have not received a Canadian Program Fee Chart with the information included with this catalog, please contact the TWO WORLDS UNITED Admissions office toll-free at 888 696-8808 for a list of Program Fees in Canadian Dollars

CANADA as a destination

Canada, which occupies the top half of the North American continent, is the second largest country in the world. With an area of 9,970,610 km2 , it stretches over 5,500 km from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and over 4,600 km from the northern tip of Ellesmere Island to the United States border. The Various regions of Canada differ markedly from one another, and each of Canada’s ten provinces and two territories has its own character. Needless to say, each student’s TWO WORLDS UNITED experience will be undoubtedly unique.

Canada’s music, literature, dance, cinema and other art forms reflect its
vibrant and varied culture. Music, whether classical or rock, jazz or opera, plays a leading role in Canadian culture. Artistic expression in all its forms has long been recognized as an important facet of Canadian society. Cultural Activities are strongly supported by various levels of government and by private enterprise.  Canadians view sport as an integral part of their lives – vital to well-rounded, healthy living. and consider sports a valuable tool for bringing people from different nations together in international Cupertino.
Swimming, ice skating, tennis, golf, ice hockey, skiing and curling are the most common sports  

Pacific Rim 

In AUSTRALIA, You may visit places like Broken Hill, the famous "silver city" mining center; Uluru National Park, home of the famous Ayers Rock, where you can learn more about the Aborigines; Alice Springs, the heart of the outback; Whitsunday Passage and Airlie Beach; or explore the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

In NEW ZEALAND you will find native rainforest, active volcanoes, majestic glaciers and miles and miles of sandy beaches all in one country!

Heading to the Pacific  

Today, students are likely to be drawn by the sophistication of Australia’s leading cities as much as the outback visions popularized by the movies. Australians, with their sly, dry humor, tend to perpetuate their national myths—not for nothing do they call their country “Oz.”Australia offers a wealth of travel experiences, from the drama of the outback and the spectacle of the Great Barrier Reef to the cosmopolitanism of Sydney and arguably the best beaches in the world. Australia is an enormous country with a large variety of events, and students are expected to see an opera in Sydney one night and meet Crocodile Dundee the next. It is this sheer vastness, and the friction between the ancient land steeped in Aboriginal lore and the New World culture being heaped upon it, which gives Australia much of its character.

 A Journey Through Time

Studying in New Zealand is a journey through time as well as distance. New Zealand is a country of rare seismic beauty: glacial mountains, fast-flowing rivers, deep, clear lakes, hissing geysers and boiling mud. There are also abundant forest reserves, long, deserted beaches and a variety of fauna, such as the kiwi, endemic to its shores. Any number of vigorous outdoor activities - hiking, skiing, rafting and, of course, that perennial favorite, bungee jumping - await the adventurous. You can swim with dolphins, gambol with newborn lambs, whale watch or fish for fattened trout in the many streams. You may find yourself living with a host family near the capital city of Wellington, known for its cultural festivals, artsy Dunedin, Christchurch near the Southern Alps or the picturesque countryside. Make sure to leave room for the New Zealand’s famous hokey pokey ice cream!

You won’t be lacking for extracurricular activities.  Clubs and musical groups meet before school or during lunch break, with intramural exports events after school. 

Asia

Industry and family. Hospitality and privacy. Living in JAPAN, you will discover a land of contrasts. While some things will seem startlingly familiar, you will also be immersed in a culture that grew up in a way totally different from the West. Your stay in this fabled country will change you forever

Although 20th-century technology plays a powerful role in the daily life of the Japanese, most Japanese maintain a centuries-old tradition of hospitality and graciousness Japan is a highly rewarding country for students. It offers temples, shrines, and beautiful Japanese gardens; kabuki, the treasured form of theater utilizing intricate scenery, costumes, and makeup; and sumo wrestling and kendo, the sword fighting of the samurai. Japanese society places a high value on education, and students are expected to follow up closely with their studies. The school year consists of three terms separated by vacations.  During your first term, you will have a modified curriculum and receive special help with Japanese language and Culture.  As your language skills develop, you’ll be encouraged to take more challenging courses.  Joining one of two schools clubs will add to your academic experience and help foster friendships.

When you go to school or visit there with one of your host siblings, you'll find yourself in one of the senior high schools, and two things may surprise you. One is that most schools are quite large - averaging 1,000 students - and the other is that you will probably have to wear a uniform. While the curriculum is compulsory, you will probably enjoy learning new things in subjects like Japanese classics or contemporary Japanese language. You can also attend elective classes that include subjects such as art and calligraphy. With your host siblings or new friends, you might go to club activities after school, with activities that range from calligraphy to karate.

 Summer Programs

TWO WORLDS UNITED summer programs mean joining a caring host family, learning a new language, traveling to faraway places and making new friends. By living with a host family you will learn first-hand about a different country and culture. The TWO WORLDS UNITED Summer Program is 4 to 8 weeks long, so you can enjoy the adventure of living and learning abroad. The TWO WORLDS UNITED Summer Program is more than a trio, it is an experience of a lifetime!

Individual Summer Programs offer the thrill of living in a the country of your selection with a host family and knowing a different culture by personal immersion.

Students live with a carefully selected host family in the destination country of their choice.  Host families welcome their new "son" or "daughter" in all day to day activities.  Summer program participants can also look forward to summer excursions with the host family as families in the US, Spain, France and Italy  typically like to "enjoy their summers" by going to the beach, and taking vacations and weekend excursions.

All individual summer programs abroad include the option of intensive language classes, and some have an in-country travel adventure component at the end of the program.  Registration deadlines are approximately three weeks prior to the start of each term. Students must be officially registered to the program and receive written confirmation from the TWO WORLDS UNITED admission office. The following are general policies governing the registration process.

*Summer programs are 4, 6 or 8 week programs, departure dates are scheduled throughout the summer, and specific program dates can be requested.

Requirements (Exceptions to these requirements are considered on a case-by-case basis.)

*Age: from 13-18

*Language: No special requirements

Group programs

Group programs offer a rare opportunity for groups to travel abroad with the opportunity to live with a host family during their visit.  Each group member stays within a carefully selected host family.  Two or more group members may stay within the same host family allowing people of different cultures to interact and share their cultures.  Larger groups are divided to stay with many host families within the same area, and group members meet together at scheduled times for group cultural excursions and activities. 

Teacher Programs

Teacher Programs abroad range from 2 to 8 weeks in length.  TWO WORLDS UNITED programs vary from studying French in Paris to working as a Spanish teacher in Spain.  Other programs offer the possibility of intensive classes during the program at the University level.  Summer programs are also available for teachers and students groups.  TWO WORLDS UNITED group programs are home-stays, allowing groups to experience the lifestyle and culture from within the homes of its native people.  

GROUP PROGRAMS

These programs are design to allow groups of students to form a group that will travel abroad with a teacher or other adult leader.  All group programs include placement in host families, and in non-English speaking countries the option of participation in intensive language classes is available. 

Group programs generally last from two to four/five weeks and the groups select their own dates within program parameters.

Group programs offer a rare opportunity for groups to travel abroad with the opportunity to live with a host family during their visit.  Each group member stays within a carefully selected host family.  Two or more group members may stay within the same host family allowing people of different cultures to interact and share their cultures.  Larger groups are divided to stay with many host families within the same area, and group members meet together at scheduled times for group cultural excursions and activities. 

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