Milojevic and Cara spend junior year attending Fleming High School

Tijana Milojevic and Madalina Cara are two 16-year-old girls visiting Fleming High School through the Future Leaders Exchange Program and while just four short months ago the two were complete strangers, they now live with the same host family and attend the same small high school, thousands of miles away from their home countries, forming a bond through an experience of a lifetime.

The Future Leaders Exchange Program, or FLEX, is a competitive, merit-based scholarship program funded by the United States Department of State that operates in Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Over 35,000 students compete annually in multiple rounds of testing to earn a scholarship, which provides for them to spend an academic year in the U.S. living with a volunteer host family and attending high school.

Milojevic, from Serbia, said she heard of FLEX when an older girl she knew from her hometown visited the U.S. as an exchange student.

"I admired her courage, but I was also concerned about how she left her family and friends for 10 months. I was very curious and applied for that program in my first year of high school," said Milojevic. Although she said she met a lot of nice people in that first attempt, and she had a lot of fun, she wasn't accepted.

In her second year of high school, she applied again.

The application process, the two explained, includes various application stages including essay writing, interviews and tests.

"I applied in October and I got my answer at the end of February, which took some time, since the Washington representatives were the ones who checked our applications, but I believe it was totally worth it," said Cara. "One main factor that made me decide to come here is the opportunity to experience American culture and learn to adapt in a whole new environment with people who think and act differently. I love to try new things in general so I knew I would enjoy this exchange opportunity."

Cara is from Moldova.

Both Cara and Milojevic are living with their host family, Andrew and Darci Muller and their four children, Delaney, Harper, Vance and Jude, and are juniors at Fleming High School.

Tijana Milojevic,

from Cuprija, Serbia

Milojevic is from what she describes as a small town of about 20,000 in Serbia where she lives with her parents. She has one older brother who has moved out to attended University.

"My school in Serbia is pretty different from school here," she said, explaining that school begins at 8 a.m. but finishes depending on how many class periods she has that day. Typically, she said, she has six to seven a day, and each lasts 45 minutes, so school is usually out by 2 p.m.

"Our whole schedule is very variable," said Milojevic.

Milojevic said there are 18 subjects in school and none of them are electives. Another notable difference, she pointed out, are that students are graded on a scale from one to five.

"Also the thing that is really different from schools here is that we don't have sports included in school. But I really like my schedule here in Fleming."

In addition to going to school, Milojevic said she also attends solo singing and choir classes at musical school and she was planning to take acting school where she would have two classes a week.

In her free time, she spends time with her friends, volunteers, likes to go for walks, cooks and bakes, watches movies and spends time with her family.

The biggest challenge in transitioning to school in the United States, Milojevic said, has been language.

"Since English is my second language it was confusing, especially in the beginning, but I would say that I am adjusting fine and it is getting really easier to follow these classes," she said.

While attending Fleming High School, Milojevic is participating in volleyball, FBLA and Knowledge Bowl. She is also working in the School's concession stand as part of her community service that is required with the FLEX program.

When volleyball is over, she plans to play basketball and track in the spring.

"I really enjoy my time here doing various activities, but the thing I enjoy the most are volleyball practices and volleyball games because I've never done something like that before," Milojevic said. "I love it because it is an opportunity to hang out with my friends and get to know each other better. I appreciate everything the team and coaches did to make me feel welcomed."

She also likes to spend time with her host family, watching movies, listening to music, baking and cooking.

"They take us sometimes on trips, which I am really thankful for. I still love to take walks, hang out with friends," she said.

One of the biggest surprises thus far of her experience, Milojevic added, is how well organized the school system is to include extra-curricular activities that students are dedicated to.

"All the opportunities you have in school," she said.

Milojevic's favorite memory this year is a recent Halloween party with the Fleming volleyball team. She said the team watched a movie, carved pumpkins, played hide and seek, talked and just laughed a lot.

"I just want to add a thank you to all the people that made me feel accepted in the new environment," Milojevic said. "This is a big challenge, but I could never imagine it without the support of everybody here and in Serbia as well."

Madalina Cara,

from Chisinau, Moldova

Chisinau is the capital and largest city of Moldova, a landlocked country bordered by Ukraine and Romania. Cara lives with her parents and little sister, who is 12.

"I am pretty close to my family, especially to my sister, and back home we spend a lot of time together," said Cara.

She said they do a lot of family activities together like traveling and exploring new places or doing things at home like cooking dinner together or watching movies.

Cara said she is the kind of person who is willing to try everything and then decides what she likes, so she has a lot of hobbies but some of her favorite are debates, volleyball, reading, writing, traveling, cooking and volunteering.

She also really enjoys school, both here and back at home. "My school in Moldova is honestly amazing! The teachers are great and the subjects are a bit difficult but very interesting, and since in my school a competitive environment is very normalized, I am very motivated to study every day and prepare for all my classes," she said.

The biggest barrier in coming to the United States, for Cara, has been the differences at school. She said differences in curriculum, discrepancies in terms and way of completing some exercises, as well as the language barrier, have all been challenging but over the past few months she has adapted to most of these things and has a better understanding of the academic world here.

When not at school, she hangs out with her friends and together they like to try new restaurants or go visit a museum, a theater or cinema or sometimes even to see an opera or ballet.

"We all love music, arts and acting so going to these things makes us so excited," said Cara about her time with friends back at home.

In Fleming, she is active in FBLA and has been a part of the Lady Wildcat volleyball team. In addition to that she hopes to run track in the spring and plans to be active volunteering in the second semester.

"Here I either read or cook something in my free time because I love doing that, but something that's a bit new for me is hanging out with the kids all the time, because they are pretty young compared to my sister," Cara said. "Jude, the youngest, is three years old and the oldest one, Laney is 10, so with these many kids and five dogs, you just never get bored. I always have flashbacks of my own childhood while spending time with them and that makes me happy. I admire them so much for their childish behavior and sweet innocence."

Since traveling is a hobby of hers, and something she does with her own family back home, Cara has enjoyed going to Denver with the Mullers. She said they went to an amusement park and she has had a lot of fun in those experiences.

"I also really like big cities and have always been fascinated by them and Denver is definitely a beautiful place," said Cara.

In fact, her favorite memory, so far, is a recent trip to Fort Collins with FBLA. Cara said students got to explore downtown while learning about businesses there. "I got to spend time with my classmates and meet new people, too," she added.

As an overall experience, Cara said she has been pleasantly surprised by the way people are so positive and kind here, adding that she expected Americans to be nice, but that the way people are understanding and considerate makes her grateful for this experience.

"Since the very first day I arrived here, people have been very welcoming and they helped me adapt really quickly, so I appreciate that a lot," said Cara. "One of the things I'm really grateful for is the opportunity to talk about my country, its history and culture because most people here haven't even heard about it so I sometimes feel like I'm in an ambassador's position, by teaching people everything I know about Moldova and representing it as well as I can."