For the first time since the fall of 2019, UPrep welcomed visiting students from around the world. COVID-19 shut down the Global Link program, according to director of global and outdoor education Brian Gonzales, which sends students to partner schools along with hosting students from those schools. 

This year UPrep is hosting two groups of students. The first group came from Japan, they arrived March 23 and left April 1. The ten students from Japan came from Keimei Gakuin, right outside of Kobe.

The visiting students stayed with host families in the community. Sophomore Galia Harmelin has hosted students from various countries in the past and hosted a student from Japan.

“We’ve been to Japan before,” Harmelin said. “We’ve hosted exchange students before, so we felt experienced and ready.”

Host families are responsible for taking care of their visiting student and showing them around.

“We took him fishing and took him to Mount Rainier. We filled his day with so many activities that I think he felt exhausted,” Harmelin said. “By that point he really opened up, expressed what he was interested in, what he wasn’t, and we really built a connection.”

Along with spending time in classes, the students did classic Seattle activities like visiting the Space Needle, exploring the International District and riding the Washington State Ferry. There is a group of UPrep students heading to Taiwan during spring break, but no group is heading to Japan due to COVID-19 concerns from the school in Kobe.

The second group coming is from Colegio San José in Barranquilla, Colombia. The group of ten will be at UPrep from May 18 through May 28. UPrep students will be traveling to Colegio San José during spring break to visit them. 

 There have been three UPrep trips to Colombia since 2019. The partnership with the school was formed by former Spanish teacher Alma Andrade.

 “Alma Andrade had done a Fulbright scholarship in Colombia and when she came back she brought connections with the school,” Gonzales said.