South Korea – AHS NEWSPAPER

Andover High’s DECA Transition

March 17, 2025

Arshiaa Prem || STAFF WRITER

The DECA team changed their district from Boston to Lawrence over the summer.

The change in districts for DECA has received mixed reactions from both students and teachers. They now go against harder opponents and attend competitions in different locations than in previous years.

“I don’t know how much the district change has benefited, but it also hasn’t had a negative impact,” noted Kari Belson, a junior and three-year member of DECA. Belson said that facing strong teams, like Westford Academy, has encouraged members to work harder and perform better in competitions.

The advisor of DECA, Business teacher Ashley Kinsman said, “The people in charge of DECA made district changes based upon enrollment for each district to make the sizes of each district closer.” She said they want all of the districts to have about the same amount of people competing.

DECA is a program that is designed for high school students who are passionate about business. It is a competition in which students prepare for one of three categories: role-plays and case studies, prepared events, or online simulations. DECA has many categories which include marketing, finance, hospitality, management, entrepreneurship, and personal money skills.

Kinsman believes that the change has had minimal impact on students. “You’re still getting the same level of competition,” she said. She views the change as potentially beneficial for students. District 5 (Lawrence) is slightly smaller than District 4 (Boston), so there’s just slightly less competition.

Since each district decides when they compete, this year’s competition was held a month later than usual, which gave them more time to prepare. The extra time allowed leaders to work individually with more participants and provide guidance that some of the newer members hadn’t gotten the chance to receive before.

Marina Ten, a senior and co-president of DECA, shared her perspective from a leadership role. Her initial reaction to the district change was one of surprise, primarily due to the change in competition location. “The biggest thing about the district change is that you’re going up against schools that you’ve only really seen at states,” Ten explained. “We were able to hold more meetings and provide more information to the members.”

According to DECA members, the new competition venue at UMass Lowell was nice too, having been described as less confined than previous venues. The new setup, which Ten described as having an “airplane hangar vibe,” provided a refreshing change and more freedom for participants. Ten stated that she was also pleased with the club’s success in the new district, saying that many members placed well in their competitions.

Articles

Korean Exchange Students at AHS

March 17, 2025

Clara Strong || STAFF WRITER

The week before midterms, 24 South Korean students came to Andover to learn about our language and culture.

These high school students arrived on January 8 and stayed for a week before visiting Boston and New York, and eventually flying back to Korea. While most of them visited Andover High School, eight students explored Wood Hill Middle School. The experience aimed to broaden their horizons and teach them about our culture, while also improving their grasp of the English language. They also held a few presentations for AHS students and our community about Korean language and culture.

Peter Hall, World Language program coordinator, said the exchange students were “bridging cultures, which is really the purpose of the whole program, to promote intercultural understanding.” He also said this exchange program is not alone in its goal: “The world language philosophy, the global pathways philosophy, and these organizations all have the similar goal of promoting cultural understanding.” Students invited veterans from the Korean War to a presentation for the community as a way of achieving this goal.

Korean student Sun You-Chan said that he and his fellow students learned a lot. With his American friends, he said, “I talk to them about Korean culture and they talk to me about [American] culture.”

While the program started over 10 years ago, it paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and only resumed last year. It is run by a group called the Academy at Harvard Square, which is part of a larger non-profit organization, Educational Divide Reform. This organization focuses on giving opportunities to students in Asia. The AHS chapter of Global Pathways, a program that creates opportunities for students to learn more about the world, collaborates with them to create this experience for students.

While the students were in the United States, they were all assigned students whom they shadowed throughout the school day. “During the school day, essentially the students visited classes and did whatever their Andover partners were doing, and after school, they had another two hours when they would meet and prepare for their presentation,” Hall said. Sun added, “We went to the museums or toured the universities, and we also have workshops.”

Although exchange students generally shadow kids from their host family, some students this year had no host family and instead stayed in hotels.

“The only reason the second group didn’t have host families was because last year we struggled to find enough host families,” explained Hall. The organizers were worried that the same would happen this year, so they planned for a hotel.

However, there are many benefits to being a host family, such as getting a more personal experience with someone of a different culture, and helping to open one’s mind to new cultures and experiences.

Armand Omelko is a sophomore at AHS and hosted two 11th-grade Korean students, Shin Chaemin and Jeong Seungwon. He said, “It was neat to have people visit like this, especially from a culture that’s actually similar to mine, because I’m half-Korean, so that was interesting. It was also interesting to see the difference between being in the Korean diaspora versus actual Koreans.”

Currently, AHS offers a French exchange program, as well as many opportunities with Global Pathways. Hall also hopes to send students to Korea in a reciprocal exchange, but he expects this to take at least a year to work out.

Sun lived in a city in South Korea, so he shared, “I like the countrysides in America… we tend to experience local things, and I like that.” Also, he explained a big cultural difference in our school systems: “Students move [around school] here, [but] to take their classes in Korea, teachers go around.” He means that teachers are the ones switching rooms each period, not students.

As for why the Koreans came right before midterms, Hall said, “That’s their best time for them to travel in Korea. I know it was not ideal for us. Some years they’ve come a little bit at the beginning of the new semester, which is a little better than right before midterms. But, that was their best dates… the way their vacation times fell.”

Articles Community Education

Foreign Exchange Program Returns to AHS

January 25, 2024

By Saarvi Deshwal
PHOTOGRAPHER

A group of students from South Korea is currently visiting AHS from January 19 to 30, and a group of students from Vietnam will visit from February 3 to 13.

The Global Pathways program at AHS works with the Academy at Harvard Square (TAHS) to make the exchange program possible. The organization collaborates with the non-profit Educational Divide Reform (EDR) to promote global education, with a focus on Asian students learning English. One of the major goals of Global Pathways is to foster cultural and academic diversity through enriching experiences.

“In Global Pathways, one of the components is to have an immersive experience, whether that’s by travel or looking at more in-house opportunities like this,” said Global Pathways advisor Rebecca D’Alise. “So we’ve been trying to encourage our students in Global Pathways to host these students so they can have an immersive experience that way.”

Since early November, students have had the opportunity to register to host exchange students from South Korea and Vietnam in their homes, regardless of whether they are a part of Global Pathways or not. It’s an excellent opportunity for students from other countries to learn what it’s like to be a student in the United States. It’s also a chance for AHS students to explore and learn about different cultures. “You just never know how things are different until you have to turn and explain something to them that is normal for everyone else around you,” said librarian Mary Coombs, “and now you know that this is a special thing, and we didn’t know it was special.”

The program hopes for AHS students to be able to share their lifestyles with those coming from abroad because “that’s what this program’s all about; experiencing those cultural differences, finding similarities, finding differences, and celebrating those differences. I only see upsides,” commented D’Alise.

This is also an opportunity for exchange students to practice their English language skills, and for host families to get a chance to learn something new. “Part of learning a language is figuring out how to communicate when you don’t speak the same language,” added World Language program coordinator Peter Hall. “That is a critical part of the learning process. It sometimes includes gestures, rephrasing using simple language, drawing, or using technology apps for assistance.”

COURTESY PHOTO / Lana Huynh
Sophomore Lana Huynh prepares a guest bedroom for her foreign exchange student. AHS families have been asked to host exchange students from South Korea and Vietnam.

The school is still looking for a few more families to host male students and the visiting teachers. Hosts are excited to show foreign exchange students what it’s like to be a student at Andover High and get to know them. “I’d love to have friends from [Vietnam],” shared sophomore Lana Huynh, who is hosting two Korean students in January and one Vietnamese student in February. “The only Vietnamese people I know are my family, and I’d love to get to know someone from there who has a different lifestyle from me. I was raised in the United States, so I’m excited to share our differences.”

Prior to COVID-19, students from foreign countries had come to AHS for many years. Another goal of Global Pathways was to get this program back up and running again after having been shut down for three years. This is the first year our school has been able to run the program since the pandemic, with students having come from Korea, China, and Vietnam in the past.

Global Pathways also hopes for similar opportunities to be available for AHS students in the upcoming years. Currently, Hall is running a trip to France for French students to have an experience where they’re living with somebody in the country and going to their high school. “I can’t imagine that this is not going to, in some way, gain some attraction,” said D’Alise. “Hopefully, in the next couple of years, we [will] see [a similar] exchange with South Korea and other host schools.”