For all of you who do not know me, my name is Flora Mai and I am an exchange student from Germany. I want to tell you about my first week at Monarch.

As an exchange student and a total newcomer, my first school day was actually the preparation for the new students. It was also my first time being in a high school. It was an amazing experience because everything  is much better equipped and labeled, so you  know where to go for what. It was also quite  overwhelming. Monarch has almost three times as many students as my school in Germany and is much more advanced at working with technology. I learned that on the first day of school when the teachers explained Schoology and Infinite Campus.

A big problem was, during the first two to three days, I was lost as lost can be. I only got to my divergent classes with the aid of the nice students with the blue shirts or with the help of Ambassadors.

The technological aspect of Monarch  became quite the enigma to me in the first few days because I was absolutely not able to use to it. In my German school we are not even allowed to use our phones in the hallway… in class is an absolute taboo; the same goes for any  other technological device.

After the first day of class, even though it was only an introduction to the different subjects, I was amazed and a little bit scared because it was just not what Ii was used to (Captain Obvious speaking). The confusion continued in the first week when I  was sett up with a chromebook for my use and log ins for all the accounts because in the beginning nothing was really working. There were problems with me getting into my accounts and when I was in everything was confusing.

One of the class that confused me the most was actually publication because it relies a lot on working with laptops and computers and the worst week was just full  of problems for me in that class but luckily it all worked out !!

The Nurse’s office is also very different, in my German school the health room is run by students and is not always accessible while here you even have an adult  that will take care of you who is also there all the time because sometimes even the most devoted students just don’t cut it.

The teachers are also much more caring about the students. Something that greatly surprised me was that you can retake tests and quizzes; you definitely can not do that in Germany.

My favorite place in the school in the library because I just love books and you will find anything there and you can even order books for the library!! For you that might not be a surprise but for me it absolutely is. Having a school library is already a big deal for me because you do not usually have that at German school in the part where I come from, so I am really happy about it and about how much the students have a say in the book selection.

All in all, I like it here a lot better than I do in Germany and I already do not want to go back.