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Forum Nexus

I'm very happy I chose to participate as I got to see so many countries and made friends with a bunch of new people. I had a great time exploring Europe and learning about its culture. Amsterdam was my favourite!
Professor Ed clearly loves what he teaches and and has a deep passion for history. I learned a lot about the EU which also helped me explore the countries better. The Independent Cultural Visits were the best part about classes as it made me do more exploration in my free time.
The program director is very fun, energetic and lively.

Program: Study Abroad
Location:
Posted: Nov 28, 2023
Overall:
10
Support:
10
Value:
10

Forum Nexus

Forum-Nexus is a very interesting program with amazing professors. The program blends in academics and fun in the most perfect way. I got to visit more than 7 European cities in 1 month so that's unbeatable. And the accommodation was perfectly chosen so we're always at easy access to everything in the cities.
I took one class on cultural intelligence and the professor was very knowledgeable and full of energy. Professional visits were also great!
I met so many great students, learned so much and experienced so much!

Program: Study Abroad
Location:
Posted: Nov 1, 2023
Overall:
10
Support:
10
Value:
10

Askari WCP

This is my third trip to Africa to experience wildlife. While I have loved the other trips, this one stands out as being the most integrated. It wasn’t just a wildlife viewing trip. I was submerged into a programme of conservation, preservation, awareness and the day to day management and running of a wilderness conservation reserve. I have come home with a mountain of knowledge gained while also aware I have only touched the surface. My life has been enriched by a dedicated team of staff (Katie, Bron & Stu) who are extremely knowledgeable, passionate and enthusiastic about the reserve and all it has to offer. Their warm hospitality created a family environment and it was wonderful being part of a contributing team. The entire programme is so well organised and run which is a credit to the hard work of the team there. I cannot speak highly enough of them and I am so thankful that I went on this trip.

Program: Volunteer Abroad
Location: South Africa
Posted: Aug 27, 2023
Overall:
10
Support:
10
Value:
10

Intrax Study Abroad and AYUSA Study Abroad

Over the years we have hosted a total of six exchange students, five of these we hosted through Ayusa. We reluctantly continued to use Ayusa because we were already established with them. However, we will not use them again. In general, our hosting exchange students has been a positive experience. However, the positive experience was despite Ayusa and simply because the majority of exchange students are serious students who want to experience the United States. After gaining more experience with how Ayusa operates, we would no longer recommend Ayusa to anyone. The main problems with Ayusa center on their true and only motive which is money. They do not properly vet exchange students which increases the risk of students that are not appropriate or ready for an exchange problem to still be accepted. Another big concern is that the pay reps that work for Ayusa receive is tied to how many students they recruit to be exchange students. We have now come across three examples of Ayusa telling complete lies to either us or our exchange students. These lies appear clearly are either because a local rep didn’t want to risk losing a placement and the nice commission that come with it or because a rep didn’t want to be bothered with looking into requested travel dates.

The first lie we discovered was told to the family of an exchange student we hosted from Chile. The local rep in Chile told the family that if our student attended her senior year of high school that she would get a real high school diploma. That was a totally false statement that our Chilean student and her family didn’t learn the truth about until after she arrived. Her father was particularly upset about this because he never would had agreed to his daughter going in the program had he known she would still need to take her last year of high school upon returning to Chile. This lie, along with our student’s parents wanting her to return to Chile, was why she returned back to Chile after the first semester instead of completing the full year as originally planned. The only reason we can tell for Ayusa lying to that family was that the rep didn’t want to lose the commission for signing them up.

Another lie told to both us and the family of a student we hosted from Holland concerned travel dates. What was worse about this is it was actually a regional coordinator for Ayusa that told the lie. We told this student from Holland that our County Fair was be in town and if she could arrive a few days early, she could go to that. When we approached Ayusa about her arriving a few days early, we were told “oh that’s not possible, we can’t do that”. Then about three weeks later, that same regional coordinator contacted us again telling us want a great idea it would be for this student to arrive a few days early. My wife gets the credit for immediately seeing through this. She checked the cost of the airline ticket, and saw that the date we suggested was significantly cheaper than the original date Ayusa was planning on having the student fly. As always, when it comes to Ayusa, it was all about the money, not what is best for the student.

The third lie Ayusa told got wrapped up in a lie a French family told Ayusa when we hosted a student from France. This French girl’s profile said she didn’t want to be placed in a home with pets. Then later in the profile she said she was very allergic to cats. We have dogs, no cats. So we asked Ayusa to contact them to get clarification if the problem was just cats and if dogs would be fine. The response we got back was that the student would love being with dogs. That was a complete lie the girl’s father told Ayusa. Not only did this girl not like dogs, she had a strong fear of them. The student blamed her father for the lie. The father is who was contacted by Ayusa and asked. She said that when her father told them what he had told Ayusa, her mom and her called Ayusa and tried to clarify the situation. However, the rep there in France apparently said it would be fine and never passed on the clarification. Likely this was because the rep was more concerned about getting the commission. Out dogs are mostly inside dogs, so yes it was a big issue. In this case, initially I was not sure if our French student was telling the truth about trying to send a clarification or not. However, when considering the other lies we have seen personnel with Ayusa tell, I concluded the French family was probably telling the truth and it probably all was because of the Ayusa reps concern about losing a commission.

This issue with dogs and our student from France is a good example of Ayusa’s sloppy vetting. Had they been more interested in achieving good placements instead of just money, this likely never would have happened. Also our student from Holland never should have been placed in an exchange program at all. She had never been away from her parents for more than a week and was way too emotionally immature to be in an exchange program. Additionally, she was too poor of a student to be in an exchange program. She dropped out of the program and returned to Holland.

Please don’t let the negative parts of what I discussed here cause you not to host an exchange student. Even with a sloppy exchange program like Ayusa, the odds of it being a positive experience is in your favor. Over the years we hosted students from Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Chile, and Holland. For the most part it has been a great experience. The only negative parts were caused by Ayusa not properly vetting students and lying to students and their families. Your odds of having a positive experience are probably better if you use someone other than Ayusa.

Program: Volunteer Abroad
Location: USA
Posted: Aug 19, 2023
Overall:
1
Support:
1
Value:
2

AFS

I am writing without a location or specifying the year when I joined the program because I do not want to get into trouble with my local AFS a second time (as you will see later on). This is going to be quite a long review.

I joined the program as a student and was supposed to have a one-year long exchange, but due to AFS laziness, trickery, and greed I was sent back to my home country in a just a couple months.

I went on exchange in an European country, and was sent to a remote chapter with no other AFS students. This, of course, means the family (not families!) willing to host you are very limited.

My host and I communicated with each other extensively prior to arrival, but as you may know from other reviews, this really doesn't mean anything as neither party knows who they will really be living with.

AFS builds up VERY unrealistic expectations for students (and for host families as well from what I've read in other reviews here). Students DO expect to live with a "normal middle-class family" (meaning you expect a new, fun and yet somewhat challenging lifestyle) because they are NOT told that the host family (if they can even find one for you that is, you may waste two months in your home country because AFS has already taken your money and isn't in a hurry, you are.) may be from the lower class and have financial difficulties just living (i.e. the house may be in disrepair, and I mean broken-kitchen broken-bathroom level disrepair).

As someone from the lower class myself (definitely not a "bella donna" middle class rich kid, I have seen my fair share of money problems and family problems in my own family myself) I have nothing against those who are less financially well-off, but AFS really should not allow families who are struggling to make end's meet to host students. It's a massive burden both on the families and the students as both parties' quality of life will suffer, which is obviously a recipe for good memories for both parties. Both parties would be better off not hosting and not being hosted.

Anyways, as a student, I tried my best to learn the local language as soon as I knew which country I was going to, and that did help with communication after arrival, but no amount of language will help with a host that is obviously not suited to host you, but is hosting you because of god knows what. As others have pointed out, AFS just cares about getting the students in a family, because that's how this greedy dysfunctional organization makes money. Non-profit? Yeah, right.

As you may have guessed, I was not happy from the get go at my host family's house, which is really not their fault, but rather AFS's for doing zero vetting. It was so bad that I even had problems sleeping because the walls were paper thin. I had a breakdown not soon after that, you can say it's my fault, which I would partly agree with, but honestly that blame lies with AFS for even allowing this to happen in the first place.

I tried asking for a change of host to the country's AFS branch, but in return I got told it was all my fault, I'm spoiled, cultural differences, blah blah blah, because it's better for them to do nothing, less work that way.

So I turned to social media for help, and the next day AFS came to me and told me to delete my post in a threatening manner. As an exchange student in a foreign country whose life is basically on the hands of AFS, I had no other choice but to comply. No words about changing host families of course.

Surprisingly, I got what I wanted next month (maybe what I did really caught their attention) and I transferred to my new family. Things were going well initially but then gradually deteriorated due to language barriers (the new host family barely spoke English), and as I can only speak the local language at a beginner's level, communication was a massive problem that AFS did basically nothing to resolve.

Sure, the local chapter correspondent was a nice person, but he/she was far too busy to help with solving such complicated issues. The monthly meetings are, in my opinion, token gestures because if the problems can be solved with such a short meeting, it wasn't even a problem in the first place, and if it can't be solved, then the meeting's not gonna help.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and I received a call from the local AFS saying I apparently had mental issues, and needed to see a doctor (which I did not have, I can assure you. The accusations are self-harm related and I was, and still am too scared of harming my body in the first place to even do such things).

At the doctor's, the host family and the doctor talked about what I supposedly did (from what I could make out with my beginner level proficiency), and then the doctor asked me about how I was feeling, did I do such things, etc... after giving me a physical checkup.

The next week when the report came out, I was horrified to see that the doctor had given me a positive diagnosis and was in urgent need of medical care despite the report clearly stating that I was perfectly healthy physically and that the diagnosis was purely based off of what the host family said I did. The host family said I had lost a lot of weight over the past year despite only having hosted me for less than a quarter of a year and ignored the fact that I had actually gained weight after arriving in that country.

I was then promptly kicked out of the country and sent back to my home country at my own expense. No refunds, no apologies, no chance to proof my innocence, just tens of thousands of wasted dollars.

Don't join this god forsaken program. Stay far, far away. The potential mental damage is not worth it.

Program:
Location:
Posted: Aug 2, 2023
Overall:
1
Support:
1
Value:
1

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