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By
Kala Larson
Harlaxton College Web Design Student
Thursday, February 28, 2008
As you walk into the front door, the sudden aroma of a home-cooked meal fills your nose. The sounds of a small household, the buzz of the tele, the hum of the heater, fill you ears. And the calm look of welcoming fills your body.
This is what it feels like when you walk through the front door of your “family.”
Harlaxton College offers a program called Meet-a-Family where students are paired with families through out the area to get a taste of British culture and real food. All students have to do to join the program is write a letter stating likes, dislikes and a few miscellaneous things about their life.
“I believe Harlaxton has been doing the program ever since the mid 1980's. The reason for starting the program was to get the students out of the college and into a real British home. It increases the experience that students can have while they are here at Harlaxton,” said Matthew Andrzejewski, Dean of Students.
Meet-a-Family operates in a way for students to combine American life styles and stories with those of English families in the Harlaxton Village and Grantham area. This semester there are 55 students participating in the program throughout 31 families. Families can join the program on a strictly recommendation basis.
There are many reasons why people join the Meet-a-Family program. Some do it for the experience, other do it for the home-cooked meal.
“I signed up for the Meet-a-Family Program because a lot of my classmates who have studied at Harlaxton before highly recommended the activity,” said Justin McCullough, 20, a sophomore from Evansville, Ind. “They all claimed that it made the Harlaxton experience complete. So far, I have to agree with them.”
Some students struggle balancing school work with traveling. Add an extra event or program and soon students are juggling their time between activities every day. Although many people have had great experiences with the program, there are also downfalls to go along. There are bound to be issues that arise when joining something that takes time away from other activities.
“It is hard to spend a lot of time with my family because I am traveling every weekend,” said Amanda Cunningham, 19, a sophomore from Indianapolis. “But luckily we have been able to fit some get-togethers in.”
Even though the Meet-a-Family program may take away a few nights of going out with friends or studying, the things experienced with the “family” makes it worth it.
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