AHS Foreign Exchange Student Remembers Life After High School

Jennifer Sophie Teering, attended AHS from 1998 to 1999 as a foreign exchange student from Germany.

During this time, agewise, Teering was supposed to be a junior.

Teering was able to attend Arrowhead through the program GAPP (German American Partnership Program).

Teering says, “So spending a year at AHS has left a mark on my CV (Curriculum Vitae).”

Teering compares her year at AHS to a “bubble saved in her memory.” 

She says going to Arrowhead was the majority of her experience in the United States since her host-mom was Susan Stevenson, who worked as the North Campus Guidance Office Secretary at the time.

Teering says her favorite memories were “ordinary things” one would do in Germany such as sitting on the bleachers watching the football team play,  attending Japanese class, Jewellery Class, Music theory, Foreign Exchange Student Club, Honors Breakfast, National Honors Society, Homecoming/Prom and taking Drivers Ed Class.

While in Germany Teering says she sometimes experiences homesickness for Hartland.

 She has come back for six weeks in the summer of 2002, spring of 2008 as an intern, and working a job in St. Croix Fall area in 2013. 

For now, the Covid-19 outbreak has put her visits on hold because she would accompany other foreign exchange students coming to the United States.

Teering is still in contact with some of her friends that were closest to her. 

She says, “Some of them have visited me in Germany after I returned home, those experiences and these friendships I treasure.”

After AHS high school, Teering finished high school in Germany and went off to the University of Tübingen, Germany, and the University of  Greifswald, Germany, and later the University of Lund, Sweden.

She studied English, Latin, and German for the German license “Erstes Staatsexamen”- which is the first license granted by the government to teachers.

Teering later became a teacher trainee in Hildesheim Germany with the second license “Zweites Staatsexamen.” 

She then proceeded to teach at Graf-Anton Günther-Schule, OldenBurg Germany.

Her job currency is teaching English, Latin, and German. She holds some responsibility for GAPP students.

 She is also the head of the Latin department.

Teering gives a final thank you to McNamara for the help she had given her.