Oi! Bem-vindo ao Brasil. To most Americans, those words are foreign and even incomprehensible. Iowa-born Tanner Liechty was no different - until he spent a year in Barreiras, in the state of Bahia, Brazil.
Liechty, a member of the class of 2015, decided to take a year off after his senior year at Mount Pleasant Community High School in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
"I figured that [going last year would make it] easiest to make friends while I was still young and everyone still had enough free time and liberties to hang out with me," Liechty said.
"When I'm older, I will never just get the chance to go and live in Brazil."
During Liechty's time abroad, he stayed with three families through three different homestays in order to fully appreciate the traditional Brazilian experience and the family dynamics of a foreign country. He attended Cooperativa Educacional de Barreiras.
The hardest part for Liechty was not traveling past the equator, thousands of miles away from his friends and family, it was that he picked up and moved to a country without knowing a word of the language spoken there.
"As it turns out, the first four months I was unable to learn anything from the teachers. In the process of my learning, when I needed to ask the meaning of words in the middle of sentences, I couldn't interrupt a teacher," Liechty said.
In the face of difficulties with language, the biggest lesson Liechty learned abroad was that no matter how different two people may seem, there will always be common ground.
Liechty was able to communicate with many diverse people, even without speaking the language at first. Of course, upon Liechty's return, he was more or less fluent in Portuguese.
The second homestay was truly what made Brazil another home for Liechty. His host family included him in everything they did and expected him to fit in right away.
"I was told to search my way through the house and the fridge and never received a 'tour,'" Liechty said.
He was told to eat what he wanted, when he wanted, and to make himself at home.
"Life with them was truly an amazing experience," Liechty said, commenting on how he even began bickering with his homestay siblings.
After getting to know the entire family, Liechty said that he really grew to love them as his own parents and siblings.
One difference Liechty noted in Brazilian culture and American culture is that Brazilian teenagers only spend time together on weekends.
"It wasn't normal just to have a friend over to talk or play video games. It was more a culture based on going to parties," Liechty said.
For Liechty, it was difficult to adapt to not hanging out with friends after school since he was only in class from 7:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
Liechty feels strongly that being a part of another culture has allowed him to grow and develop in ways he never imagined.
Spending a year in South America gave Liechty confidence in his ability to adapt and relate to people-a skill that has served him well during the chaos of entering his freshman year of college.
But despite an apparent advantage through living abroad, Leichty has not been completely spared from the common starting point that many college freshmen face.
"I feel like I've gained more experiences than most, but at the same time I still have a lot to learn about myself coming into college, which puts me in the same boat as all the other freshman," Liechty said.
When people find out that Liechty is not eighteen, but twenty, the reaction is usually surprise.
However, Liechty is adamant that age is just a number, and does not change how his friends, peers, and teachers view him as a person.
In high school, Liechty was incredibly active. He was captain of the football team, dance captain of the show choir, one of the captains for the organization Relay for Life, and vice president of InterAct club - a social service club that is sponsored by Rotary.
Being such an active high school student, Liechty was motivated to explore his opportunities upon arriving at Hopkins.
On campus, Liechty is an undecided Engineer, but he works with the Chemical Engineer's Car Group. He is also a part of the AllNighters, Hopkins' only all male a capella group, a member of DSAGA, and an Alpha Phi Omega fraternity pledge.
While Liechty is just as, if not more, involved in campus activities now as he was during his high school years, the change in scenery from Mount Pleasant, Iowa to Baltimore is radical. Mount Pleasant has a population of 9,000 and in such a small town, everyone knows everyone else's business.
"[Although] it's quite nice having everything you need so close by . . . the anonymity of the population [in Baltimore] is comforting," Liechty said. "When I came to visit Hopkins way back the summer before my junior year, it felt natural."
Liechty's main objective for the college search was getting out of Iowa. He chose to join the class of 2015 at Hopkins because of its reputation and its more relaxed dynamic than that of Ivy League schools.
"I came on a gut feeling," Liechty said.
What may have made his choice of both coming to Hopkins and studying abroad is Hopkins's deferral policy.
"[The policy] is pretty lenient" Liechty said.
If a student has been accepted, he or she can take up to two years off, provided he or she has a legitimate reason for wanting to defer matriculation.
In other words, if a person has a plan to participate in service, take classes, or be a part of something productive to develop his or her self, then Hopkins encourages the student to take some time off before coming to Homewood.
Liechty appreciates this lenient policy, as he does not regret taking a gap year before coming to Homewood in the slightest.
He got to experience a completely different culture and lifestyle with an open mind before he turned nineteen.
His only wish was that he had brought English textbooks with him, so as not to forget material he already learned, making the transition to college slightly easier.
The gap year phenomenon is one in which many high school students across the country are participating.
The idea is inspiring-a teenager has the ability to experience the world before continuing on to the traditional form of higher education, thereby actually getting the best of both worlds.
Liechty has learned that no matter where a person goes, or what he does, he will find home, and discover much about himself along the way.
