Starting Strong Abroad

10/30/2024

Noah Lee '25

Get to know this year's St. Christophers’ ASSIST scholar is Serbian exchange student Eo Stojadinovic ’26. Until May he is staying with the Schauer family, who have two boys in the Lower School (Christian Schauer ’34 and William Schauer ’36).

In terms of interests, is an avid basketball player, and has the opportunity to play for the Saints JV team this winter. In Serbia, the basketball season spans nine months, so getting used to the much shorter season is a notable shift in Eo’s athletic experience.

Eo says he is “blending in” nicely and that people are showing welcoming kindness to him. However, the most significant adjustment for him has been the variety of different subjects in the academic curriculum. In addition, Eo has found joy in exploring our city and state, discovering differences from his own community. For example, he has noticed the dissimilarities between the use of architecture and color in comparison to that in his European hometown. Eo is complimentary of this aspect of our society, expressing his fondness for the red brick aesthetic of popular American architecture.

However, his arrival to campus as an ASSIST Scholar did not come without significant testing. During the application process, Eo had to do a four-and-a-half-hour test with writing, reading and vocabulary sections. After successfully passing this exam, he was selected for an interview as the next step. Subsequently, his name appeared within a selective applicant pool, from which he would be chosen as only one of two Serbian students. In reflection, Eo is “glad [he] made it” against low odds. His main advice to anyone trying to get the most out of an experience like his is to “work hard [and] never give up” no matter the extent of hardship.

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