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to buck it up, ‘You’ll be home in July’.
That was a wakeup call to me. I am one
of the first people from my friends and
family to study abroad. I wanted to
be a success.”
As a student, Mace attended the
Gymnasium Trebišovská, the equivalent
of a US high school. The bilingual class
she was in consisted of students from
all over the world who took traditional
high school classes. With only a few
classes taught in English, Mace was
certainly tested on not only the course
material, but her skills in learning
and translating Slovak, the national
language in Slovakia.
It may have taken a little bit of time,
but Mace soon found herself excelling
in her studies, traveling across Europe
and speaking conversationally with her
host family and new friends.
“I took the approach, I’m here. I need
to make it work,” she explains. “The
teachers were very understanding. A
lot of the work wasn’t based on the
grades, it was based my scores on scale
of 1-5 participation. They understood
that we weren’t going to know it all; no
one expected me to know the whole
periodic table in Slovak.”
When she wasn’t in classes, Mace
made the most of her time; traveling
across Europe and spending time
with her host family. During her ten-
month stay she lived with two different
families; each of which had children
of their own. While she was there, she
celebrated traditional holidays including
her birthday and Christmas. Mace says
missing the holidays at home wasn’t as
tough as she expected, and she even
had the chance to Skype with her
family during her grandfather’s 92nd
birthday party.
Although she wasn’t home during
the holidays, that doesn’t mean she
didn’t feel pangs of homesickness from
time to time. But as she lists each of
the countries she visited and the many
adventures she had over the time she
was gone, Mace says the sacrifice was
worth it. For two weeks Mace and the
other students in her exchange program
visited France, Italy and Spain. She also
gained passport stamps from Budapest,
London, Poland, Prague, and Vienna.
The many countries she visited and
cultures she learned about will no doubt
help in her future career in International
Business. As a freshman at The Woods,
Mace says her goals for the future are
not completely figured out just yet, but
her travels have certainly inspired her
career aspirations.
“Right now I would love to go into
international law or a nonprofit,” she
says. “I would love to help people
that don’t have the resources to help
themselves. When I was in India, I
thought there is so much good that I
could do. Through my career I want to
help people in the future.”
Only here for a couple of months,
Mace is already helping people,
including her fellow students at The
Woods. During the Labor Day holiday,
the first long weekend off of classes
for the new academic year, Mace says
she stayed on campus instead of going
home. While on campus, she spent time
with many of the international students
who couldn’t travel home. She spent
time learning about their hometowns
and making each of the students feel
welcome in their new home. Mace says
she was just paying it forward, after
so many people did the same for her
last year. She says it just one of the
many lessons she learned during the
memorable year.
“It was for sure the most memorable
year of my life so far,” Mace says. “I
don’t want to say it’s the best year of
my entire life because I hope it only
goes up from here.”
1. Eighty exchange students from 18 different
countries attended the same district as
Mannah. She is in front, on the far right,
with the American flag.
2. Mannah standing in front the St. Elizabeth
Church in Kosice, Slovakia. This is the largest
church in Slovakia.
3. Mannah and her class traveled to London
and spent five days sightseeing.
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