Joshua perfected his English and discovered American culture with EF Santa Barbara in 2021.
My 4 month journey with EF was an incredible experience that I recommend to everyone. You find lots of new friends from all over the world.
Where did you live during your stay and how did you experience it?
During my language stay I lived with a host family. My host family, an older woman (89 years old), took incredibly good care of every student who stayed with them. She has been doing this for over 20 years. She is incredibly loving, you can learn a lot about America from her and also improve your English skills. It’s a really loving house where everyone gets along well. Every evening we came together and ate together.
What is your favorite memory of your language stay?
My best memories of my language stay are the many trips I took with my new friends. We went to many different places. Santa Barbara is in a perfect location, so you can visit Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Yosemite Park and even San Francisco in a weekend trip. EF also offers many activities on site. For example, you could go to a baseball or basketball game in Los Angeles or spend Thanksgiving in Las Vegas and have an incredibly cool time there with many other students. You can also do cool activities with EF in Santa Barbara, such as spending time on the beach, playing volleyball and meeting new people.
What did you take away from your language stay?
I attended a Cambridge preparation course in Santa Barbara and passed the Cambridge C1 exam at the end of my stay. This official certificate will help me a lot in my future working life. Of course, I also had a lot of new experiences, made new friends and took on responsibility. You become much more independent because you no longer live at home and have to organize a lot of things yourself.
I can only recommend doing a language stay with EF.
