On April 11, a plane carrying 13 French exchange students from the Lyceé Jules Guesde touched down at Logan Airport. For the next nine days, Nobles students saw them exploring our campus, watching games on the athletic fields, or integrating into our classrooms. This June, our own students will travel to Montpellier, France, to be hosted by some of the very same French students. Furthermore, some of the hosts went to Montpellier two years ago and are reuniting with their former host student. It is the bond formed between traveler and host that fuels not only this program but EXCEL as a whole, especially applicable for those who will embark on their journey to Montpellier this summer.
“I knew I was going to France on the summer trip. So I wanted to host to meet people from [Lyceé Jules Guesde] that I would be seeing in June,” Bella Bessa Mackenzie-Grieve (Class III) said. “I wanted to model how a host should act and make sure that the experience of [the exchange students] was as amazing as possible, because I know that that’s what I would want when I go to France in the summer.”
While not all hosts will travel to France in the coming months, the act of hosting parallels the experience of traveling. Sharon Cheng (Class II) planned to travel to Japan with EXCEL in June, but still saw hosting a student as a chance to practice her French. “When Mr. Seck asked if anyone else could host someone, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to make a new friend and get the best of both EXCEL trips,” she said.
Hosting serves as both an opportunity to learn from and teach students from abroad. Much like their hosts, the exchange students share sentiments of intellectual exploration and excitement.
Hiba Hafdane (Class I), hosted by Cheng, said, “Since I was young, it was my dream to come live here when I grew up. And so when my teacher proposed that I go to the United States, I wanted to go. Also, thanks to social media, we can see the American dream and how amazing it looks here.”
Others shared different motivations for their visit. Brille Anaïs Terminale (Class I), hosted by Mackenzie Grieve, said, “I need to see how the world is elsewhere and how it works with other people. Also for politics, to find out what people actually think because in France, we have an opinion of what it’s like in the United States, but we only see the governments.”
With this exploration and exchange comes the discovery of cultural differences not only between Nobles and Lyceé Jules Guesde, but also between France and the United States. Kamil Daoud (Class I), hosted by Vedant Kulkarni (Class I), said, “I feel like you really have a brotherhood that unites people, whereas in my high school, something like an assembly wouldn’t have taken place, because nobody would have been there to sing or tell their story. So, in my mentality, I feel that people here are less embarrassed.”
There is also a significant disparity between Nobles and Lyceé Jules Guesde in regard to athletics. The concept of getting scholarships or Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) deals is practically unheard of in France, and thus, they are less focused on sports. Augustin Reynes (Class I), hosted by Guy Rabinovich (Class IV), said, “I play tennis, and I’m lucky, because my host also does some tennis, so I can follow him and participate in the training. There’s really a culture for sports here, but in France, it’s not that important. I really like sports, so being here and seeing all the Americans doing sports is really great. And I’m kind of jealous.”
Nobles’ connection with France is not only with Lyceé Jules Guesde but with the entire town of Montpellier. “The exchange started with another school I was working at in the ’80s. I changed schools in 2016. As I came to know your school and made friends with [Modern Language Faculty] Amadou [Seck] and [Senior Associate Director of Admission] Cassie [Velázquez], we decided to continue the program,” Lyceé Jules Guesde English Professor Nathalie Llorca said. “I loved the values of Nobles. It represented the diversity of America. There were notions of respect, of focusing on learning, and considering the individual needs of students. And to me, that was significant.”
The partnership between Nobles and Montpellier has lasted more than 30 years and has been experienced by alumni and faculty who still fondly recall their own exchanges. Modern Language Faculty Sarah Harthun describes the long-lasting connection she made with a girl named Aurriane on the 2012 EXCEL trip to Montpellier.“ After returning to Nobles as a teaching fellow in 2019, I finally got to bring many students on the same trip in 2024. I even got to see Auriane’s family, and we had dinner one night. It was lovely. So it’s a full circle for me; that whole experience really stuck with me, and getting to pass it on to the next generation of students means a lot.” Harthun said.
Going into another country takes bravery, and whether it is Nobles students traveling to France or others coming to us, the goal of the experience should be to learn from others’ experiences to improve as a person.
