By Simon Crocker
September has been a month of new experiences for many students, whether you were a freshman experiencing high school for the first time, having a new class with a new teacher, or maybe trying a different sport. However, one student, with perhaps the longest list of new experiences, was 16-year-old Carlos Castro Reyes.
This year, Carlos is attending Mount Vernon High School as part of a foreign exchange program. Carlos comes from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, in Mexico where he lived with his parents, Fatima and Carlos, and his two brothers, Saul, who is 14 and Mateo, who is just 7 months old. Monterrey is a large city in Mexico with a population of 1,131,000 people. Its population density is 2,390 people per square mile-almost 2,000 more people per square mile than New York City. Carlos is currently staying with his host family, the Perrys.
While in Mt. Vernon, Carlos will be playing two sports, football and soccer. This year is his first playing football. But in Monterrey, soccer was a pastime he has enjoyed since his youth.
Comparing Mount Vernon to Monterrey, Carlos said he liked both towns despite their differences. He explained that he liked Mount Vernon because of the fact that it’s greener (in the sense of fields and parks), more rural, and more secure. “You never hear about murders, kidnappings, car thefts… or things like that in Mt. Vernon.” However he still likes Monterrey because despite it being much more developed, there’s more stuff to do.
When asked what he thought of American schools, Carlos said he was surprised at the elegance of our school. He said that in Monterrey, public schools “suck”. “Public schools don’t have Apple computers, or TV’s or even air conditioning!” Carlos said as he gestured to the various gadgets that fill his seventh hour classroom. “If this is what public schools look like, I can’t even imagine private schools!”
Carlos then proceeded to go more in depth on the difference between curriculums in the two schools. He said that in Mexico, you are put on a one track system. Students do not get to choose their classes, they are just handed them and told to go on their way.
After he spends a year in Mount Vernon, Carlos plans on attending the Tecnologico de Monterrey where he will study international business.
