People in Iowa may take a lot of things for granted, but to someone who lives in another country and is visiting the Hawkeye State for one year, everything is new and different.

That is exactly what Sofie Johansen has experienced since coming to the US from Bodo, Norway. Johansen first arrived in the US on July 19, 2023 and has been with her host family, Brett and Kourtney Abbotts, since July 29, 2023. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that she wanted to leave her hometown of about 60,000 people and experience life aboard as a high school senior because she found life to be boring and never changing in Norway. 

Johansen learned about Education First through a series of online videos and her parents gave her permission to travel to the US. However, she says making this choice came with one of her biggest hurdles she had to get over.

“The biggest challenge was definitely leaving my parents and everything I know at home, I’d never been to the United States before I came here, and you’re moving in with somebody you don’t know, you don’t know anybody in the town. So that was definitely a big challenge of getting used to having to be a lot alone.”   

Johansen states that some of her favorite experiences have been going to football games, as well as attending prom and homecoming, she also found riding a school bus to be very “cool.” She describes another culture shock that she wasn’t used to.

“People here are a lot more outgoing than people in Norway are. The small talk you have with the cashiers or just anyone you meet is really new to me. It took me a lot of time to get used to that. In Norway you don’t talk to strangers at all.”

Johansen speaks highly of Education First because they helped her find a host family, she was assigned a coordinator who is in constant contact with her and checks in on a monthly basis and says this was easily the best decision she has ever made. She also appreciates the care that her host family, the Abbotts, have shown her during her one year stay. Johansen was a senior at Greene County High School and participated in bowling and soccer. Her final day in the US is June 6th.