A foreign exchange student’s experience at Central

Senior Euan Milne is a foreign exchange student from Dundee, Scotland, a beautiful coastal city in the eastern portion of Scotland.

“It’s kind of like a time capsule,” he said. “There’s tons of buildings from the 1800’s and 1700’s. Dundee is right on the water, there’s the smell of sea and you have fish constantly. It’s just a massive difference.”

In addition to the United States, he has traveled to other places around the globe like South Africa, Dubai, and different countries in Europe.

Euan is very passionate about acting. “[I worked in] the local professional theater and tons of amateur theaters constantly [in Scotland],” he said.

He has been doing theater for twelve years and acted in Central’s most recent play, “12 Incompetent Jurors.”

“I really enjoyed it. We don’t have theaters in school so it’s quite nice to have that as an option.”

Euan’s expectations of the United States have been satisfied for the most part. “I expected everything to be a lot bigger, just in every sense of the word and that has definitely been the case down to the buildings, the roads, the food, the drinks, even the people, everything is much bigger,” he said. “I also expected the school to be a big community hub where all the big events happen and where everyone comes together and that has also been fulfilled.”

He also had the opportunity to experience a Nebraska football game in Memorial Stadium. “I went to the Huskers game which was phenomenal, I loved every second of it. We don’t have stadiums quite like that [in Scotland].”

Euan has noticed a big difference in interaction between students’ socialization at Central in comparison to Dundee. “[My favorite thing about Omaha is] the people. Genuinely, the people, how people socialize, how people are just a lot more approachable here and want to get to know you more. Back home, I took four buses a day going to school and didn’t speak to a single person for two years. I come here and everyone is speaking to me and it’s just a completely different attitude towards socialization.”

Euan’s favorite classes at Central are sociology with Casey Denton and AP US History with Scott Wilson. He is planning to go to college in Scotland. “I will be hopefully attending university in Scotland, I’m not sure which yet. I am hoping to either do a sociology and political science [degree] or a history degree at Glasgow University, Edinburgh University, or University of St. Andrews.”

This foreign exchange opportunity has allowed Euan to be confident and optimistic about where his future will take him. “I could be anywhere. I could be in Scotland, I could be in the U.S., I could be in like New Zealand, I have no idea where I will be. Hopefully what I will be doing is something productive. Having this exchange has opened up the prospect of living abroad to me. It would probably feel more intimidating and less of a thing I could achieve, but in coming here and living here [from now] until June, that just shows that I can do it.”