Here is Angela’s testimonial, a young Romanian student who participated in our High School program in Japan when she was 15. Our Academic program in Japan allows students to live during one year in Japan. During the academic year, students are hosted by a Japanese host family and go to a Japanese high school.
My name is Angela Pugna, I am from Romania and I have participated in the high-school one year program in Japan. At the age of 15, I decided that I need a change in my life-style, as only staying in my hometown and going to high-school seemed not to be motivating me enough to reach my potential. I never thought seriously of moving to another country before, especially not at such a young age. Being the only child of my parents, made the thought of going abroad even more difficult in the beginning. I was though aware of the fact that just staying there will make no difference in my future.
At 15, I still didn`t know too much about the world, but I must confess I was quite wise actually because I never tried to pretend I knew anything. I admitted that there are millions of things I should learn about the world so I accepted the challenge. Soon after this, I ended up preparing to go to live for one year in a completely different culture, with different language and habits, different religion and views about life. I was feeling extremely scared, but also so much excited in the same time. I had though a huge will to learn about other countries, I wanted to see how people in other parts of the world are.
I heard a lot and read a lot about Japanese people before going. I did my “homework” and tried to learn the language a bit before my departure. It definitely helped, but the amount of knowledge I started to accumulate after arriving there is incomparable. Learning the language from scratch in Japan made me feel like I was born again. I had the chance to learn again not only a new language, but new feelings, new emotions. I have to say it was confusing, feeling scared and excited from the first step I made in the airport. If I think back of it now, I am probably glad for every single emotion I went through. 
There were times when I was missing my family, my friends, when I was not feeling integrated at all in the new community, when the language was too much for me and I thought no one can understand me. I many times wanted to give up, but it would have been the biggest mistake of my life. Especially the hard moments, made me a strong and mature young lady who was ready to build up her own future.
I decided that I had to stay for another year in order to fully accomplish my goals there. It was more like an experience of learning about people and understanding myself in a different environment. My host family helped me a lot in this process. After going over a few cultural shocks and misunderstandings, soon my host mother became my best friend, the person who would not only teach me about Japan, but about life as well. Still very young and having many dreams, my host mother represented my source of motivation for my future. In all this time, all the support I got from my home country was indispensible. Knowing that my program coordinator was there to help me anytime I needed (though he was in Romania) gave me the confidence of expressing my feelings.
Probably the hardest job was the one my parents did. I now understand that actually it was a huge sacrifice for them to let me go away, and I admire and respect them more and more since then. In spite of having to face the distance, our relation became stronger than ever before and every second of my time spent in Japan I knew there is someone in the other side of the world thinking of me and strongly supporting me.
Sometimes I am still wondering if it was the right thing to do, but there was no moment I felt any regret about going. Giving it a second thought, I realize it broaden up my horizons. It was not only a real eye-opener, but the experience of living in Japan gave me the strength to undertake further challenges and set higher and higher limits for my dreams.
Because of the time spent in Japan, I have now the chance to live in England, where I am doing my university studies and here I am, preparing again to go to Japan in a few months, this time encountering a harder challenge: to integrate myself as a young professional in the Japanese business environment. The thought that I did it once, gives me the strength to believe there is no reason I wouldn`t be able to do it again. And that`s how the experience of living in Japan helps me believe in myself, again and again.
Are you dreaming of studying in Japan like Angi? Contact us to get information about this program!
Notre-Dame International high school is part of the Saint Paul Preparatory school’s network. It actually offers an American curriculum leading to the US High School Diploma in the French environment of Notre-Dame Les Oiseaux. For the most part, courses are taught by American teachers in English, but some other courses are also taught in French, making the students become very proficient in both languages!
The campus of Notre-Dame is definitely unique: the Château de Verneuil is located in the heart of a beautiful wide park with gardens and lots of trees… so that pupils can study in a real pleasant atmosphere!
Notre-Dame International high school’s boarding quarters’ and host families’ options are also an asset, above all for international students living far away. Host families enable them to get fully immersed in the French culture.
