Junior Tilia Schultheiss moved across the Atlantic Ocean, 4,205 miles from her home in Freiburg, Germany, to the U.S. to enroll at Pioneer this year, something she said she never saw herself doing.

“I never wanted to be an exchange student,” Schultheiss said.

And yet here she is, in Ann Arbor, for the 2024-25 school year — and she is loving it — even if she does have to completely retake this school year at her German school when she returns home.

“I’m having a good time. My host family travels a lot because of my hostess. So I went to Chicago and Virginia, that was really cool,” she said. 

In addition to her coursework, Schultheiss has  joined the synchronized swimming team, and participates in multiple clubs. Having to retake the entire year back home wasn’t the only drawback she saw when considering become an exchange student.

“I would have to leave my friends and family behind, and I have to retake the year in Germany. So I was like, I don’t want to graduate without my friends,” she said.

With all of this to think about, not to mention the thousands of miles of distance between Ann Arbor and all the people she grew up with, a summer visit to Ann Arbor convince her to take the plunge.Schultheiss visited the same family she is currently staying with over the summer. She thought about her future and what she was going to do later in life. She said she realized this was the kind of unique experience that she couldn’t pass up.

“My host mother said, it would be so fun if you could stay longer. And I was like, yeah, I don’t know, maybe…” she said. “And I thought, what am I gonna do with my life, right? Do I want to go to school and then go to college, and then go to work and never experience anything amazing?”

There is a long and difficult process to becoming an exchange student. Schultheiss said she started the process in October of 2023. This process includes filling out an abundance of forms as well as getting a Visa. Schultheiss had to make a visit to the American Embassy in Germany where they interviewed her. Pioneer Principal Desmond Smith said that the Ann Arbor Public School System has a specific process for exchange students to handle all of the complicated paperwork involved.

“The district has a department that I send the incoming family to and they go through a defined process. Once the family goes through the process, the student is able to enroll and register for classes,” he said.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, from 2022 to 2023 there was an increase in the number of international students from 5.7 to 13.4 percent in all four regions of the United States. In Michigan, as of November 2024, there were 32,092 active enrolled exchange students. The increase was likely due to a rebound from the essential stoppage of exchange programs during the COVID pandemic.

For Schultheiss, this process was worth it and she’s not the only one who thinks so. One of her teachers, Debra Fitzgerald, said she really enjoys having her in Journalism Class and that she has been doing remarkably well.

Fitzgerald said that she has had many exchange students in her classes through the years and she always learns  a lot from them.

“They’re very resilient. They don’t have family here. They don’t have a mom that they can talk to everyday. They have host families, but it’s not the same. And they just, they just kind of pick themselves up after each phase and move on,” she said. “They’re very tough and resilient.”

Though it definitely takes a lot of bravery, Schultheiss said she would absolutely recommend becoming an exchange student to someone else because she has learned so much.

“You learn a lot of new things. And even if you don’t really like it, or even if you only go for a short time, you still learn new things.” she said. “I think it’s important in life, that you learn things about yourself because I feel like many people don’t know what they want in life. It’s kind of important to figure that out so you can have the best life possible.”

Something important that she had learned from this experience is if you want something you should go for it no matter what. 

“No matter what people say you should always do the things that you want to do because it’s your life. If you really want something just do it,” she said.