Exchange versus Working Holidays

There are many pros for both.

Exchange is generally available for Junior High or High School and up to university and postgraduate level study. While it can be argued that the younger you are, the easier it is to pick up languages, I don't think there is such a big difference between being in your mid-teens or late teens when you go, and people tend to have the most fulfilling experience when they go during their undergraduate degree. University is a place to meet with a lot of new people, and there are not only many exchange students but also international students. It's easy to find a support group of other people who are away from their home countries, and even expatriates of your own country. However it is also easy to make friends with people from your host country as they are looking at university as a chance to broaden their horizons and they are always looking for new friends. You will probably also find people who are studying your native language or are interested in your home country if you look for them, for example a university language club of your native language. As well as this you have a lot of freedom of course and you can travel to parts of your host country that interest you.

If you stay in a dorm you will probably have an exciting time with a lot going on around you. On the other hand you could also spend part or all of the time with a homestay family to enhance your cultural knowledge and be part of the local community.

I think the best time to go is the early years of university, as a lot of people around your own age will be looking to expand their social circle and figure out who they are. I think there's the greatest chance of making close friends as well as meeting and talking to many people and having the most fulfilling all-round experience at this time. If you go later in life, say in your mid to late twenties as a postgraduate, it is more likely that people around your own age will already have established routines and won't be looking so hard for new friends. Although you will still have a great time I think it is less likely to be a really life-changing experience.

Going on exchange during high school seems to be best for short periods of time. A lot of people seem to have trouble fitting in and experience a lot of loneliness, so a long term experience can often be a counterproductive one. Although it's true that spending one year or half a year with a host family at this age will make you fairly fluent in the local language, this is not the only consideration in going on exchange. Few people seem to come back from long-term exchange with the rave reviews that long-term university exchange students have, about making many new friends and having lots of positive new experiences. High school in nature tends to be more exclusive and in some cases even locals often have trouble making friends if they are a bit different. People also tend to take longer to make friends and then stay around the same group of people almost all the time. Even school sports and clubs are more geared towards long-term involvement and tend to have established roles and heirachies which can be difficult to break through arriving in the middle of a school term if you are just wetting your feet with something new as opposed to already posessing a lot of talent. Universities tend to have a more relaxed roundtable feel and it is easier to pop along just a few times to an event and still participate as a member. As well as this, the simple factor of economic independence and age means that students who go on univerisity exchange can often retain more of their circle of friends due to the mobility of young adults, with host country students visiting your home country on exchanges or holidays in following years or you making a return trip to the host family with a group of friends on holiday. Of course this depends on the school and place and you might decide that going on exchange during high school is the best choice for you. I am just making some points here that might not be mentioned on the brochures of companies that run exchanges.

On the other hand, people who go on short exchanges of one or two months during high school seem to have very positive experiences. It is long enough to get the experience of cultural immersion and enjoy the novelty experience not long enough for the student to experience loneliness. There also seems to be little or no reverse cultural shock which often seems to be a problem for high school exchanges, as the period is short enough that having people understand the aspects of host culture life that surprised you or that you liked, hear about your day trips and interesting people you met, is enough to feel that they understood your experience sufficiently.

Working Holidays are available for people aged 18-30 in most agreements, although the exact age varies from country to country. Here I am assuming that your primary reason for your visit is to make friends with host country people, get an understanding of local people, and increase your langage skills. This is not everyone's experience of a working holiday, and for many people who go to destinations like Australia it is basically an excuse to party at backpackers' hostels for full months or a whole year. In many cases people who stay in hostels or in shared apartments with other WH-ers don't get much contact with locals and make friends mainly with people from other countries. I think this is still a pretty good experience as long as these other WH-ers are not people from your native country! But there are many other types of working holidays too, one option is doing a homestay, another is getting a job that enables you to spend a lot of time with local people. I think this really depends on the country you go to as well as what choices you make, in Australia and parts of Europe there seems to be a fairly high risk of falling into a transitory WH-er existence, but in other countries you can probably get a job away from WH-ers.

Overall however I think university exchanges offer the most opportunites for meeting a lot of host country people and experiencing life alongside them at the same time as continuing to develop yourself in any direction you want.