While many students claim to hate the Wenatchee Valley and can’t wait to escape it after graduation, senior exchange student Dominik Szakacs, from Szolnok, Hungary, brings a positive perspective with his outlook of the valley.

Szakacs shares that everyone in Wenatchee is more helpful. In Hungary, he feels that the people aren’t friendly, and in many cities are unwilling to help someone in need.

“I like the people better here. They have more mountains here, and you can ski in the winter because of Mission Ridge and Stevens Pass,” Szakacs said. “I miss my family and some of my friends, but I like everything here.”

Szakacs started learning English only two years ago. His top three exchange options were between New York City, San Francisco, and Wenatchee, but he wanted to try a smaller city. One of his good friends was an exchange student here last year from Brazil, and he suggested Wenatchee to Szakacs also.

“I started this high school when I heard about the Rotary Youth Exchange Program two years ago from one of my friends who was an exchange student just before that year. He was telling me all this amazing stuff that he did during his exchange year so I started thinking about that too. That it would be awesome to study for a whole year in another country and make new friends in a different country and learn their culture better,” Szakacs said. “More than 100 kids wanted to be an exchange student besides me and it was really hard to get chosen.”

Besides just the attitudes of people, Szakacs cites many other differences between his hometown and Wenatchee. “They are really fashionable [in Szolnok], and you don’t go to school in pajamas or anything like here. At first when I saw kids wearing pajamas or something it was pretty weird for me,” Szakacs said.

Szakacs shared his amazement that in Wenatchee students have free time after school to play sports and other extracurricular activities, whereas in Hungary the students have around eight hours of school a day.

“We usually start the school at 8:15 a.m. and we usually finish around 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. And also my school is way smaller than WHS; mine had only 400 students and we didn’t have any sport activities. If you want to play sports you need to join a club outside of the school,” Szakacs said.

But according to Szakacs, Wenatchee and Szolnok still do have similarities: what students do for fun. In Hungary, with many rivers and lakes to choose from, the students mostly spend time outside, go boating, and go wakeboarding.

Szakacs’ newfound friend junior Miguel Viramontes shares that the two met through soccer tryouts. “He’s always happy, in a good mood and never upset. We both like the same thing; we like soccer and we like to have fun,” Viramontes said.

Szakacs shared that being an exchange student is an all-around good learning experience.

“I usually change my host families so I get used to knowing the people here, so I learn their culture. I think now I’m a better person, I’m more patient. I would suggest [being a foreign exchange student] to someone else. When you go back you will be another person than before,” Szakacs said. “As a person you grow more than just one year during your exchange year.”