International Exchange Programs at MBA

The Southport Exchange by Jackson Maradik and Dylan Haselton

This summer we had the opportunity to travel to Southport, Australia to attend The Southport School for four weeks. After arriving we were shown to our boarding houses where we would be living for the next month. Dylan was assigned in the Biddle House and Jackson was assigned to McKinley House. Both houses had a unique group of students from all over Australia and surrounding regions. After settling in, we were given a tour of the school by a year twelve student from Biddle boarding house, James Blok, who explained how things worked at the school and took us to get our class schedules. We tried to fit as much as possible on the first day before bowing out to jet lag in the late afternoon.

Our first full day, we attended classes on a Friday before a weekend with a home rugby match. Every Friday after lunch everyone in the school gathers in “the pit” where the whole school practices their war cries before the game the next day.

Rugby matches are a big deal at The Southport School and are all-day affairs. It is taken so seriously, many of the varsity players go on to play professional rugby for teams all around Australia. The entire school shows out to cheer on their classmates who play every Saturday afternoon.

When we weren’t in class, we would sometimes go down to the beach in Gold Coast which is only a 10 minute drive from the school. The Gold Coast is a large tourist attraction in Australia because of the beautiful beaches and warm weather year round. The main beach we visited was called Surfers Paradise. “Surfers” brought many unique restaurants and shops outside of the general area of the school while offering a view of life in an Australian city.

On the weekends, we would sometimes go out on leave with some other boys at the school and they would show us different parts of Australia away from the school. On our last weekend we made the trip up to the Currumbin Wildlife Preserve where we saw all the native Australian species close up.

The Australians we met seemed to be very interested in the american lifestyle, with frequent questions surrounding the rise of Donald Trump and Gun Control. It was a highlight to explain to them American culture, while learning life in Australia at the same time.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to have gone on this trip and glad to call it the highlight of our summer. Thank you to the Warner family for sponsoring the trip, Mr. Gioia and Mrs. Scholer for organizing, and everyone at The Southport School, especially the boys in each house, for being so welcoming. We will never forget this life-changing experience because we were able to fully immerse ourselves in a completely different culture than there is here in America. We really enjoyed our time in Australia and would recommend this exchange to anyone considering it.