The Student Exchange Program

We are currently offering 10 days, 1 month and 3 month options but are able to cater to your student's needs.  We are looking for bright, open-minded, flexible young people who are willing to move outside their comfort zones and who want to learn about the world and themselves.  

Option 1:  Attend Five Stars Academy.  You’ll be placed with a host family and attend Five Stars Academy. You’ll live like an international student and become immersed in the culture of the expat lifestyle and Panama. You’ll be immersed in a language and gain invaluable international experience. You’ll learn a lot about yourself.
 

Option 2:  Join us on a mission trip.  Five Stars Academy has partnered with JLM Christian Foundation (www.jlmchristianfoundation.org), a 501C3 non-profit organization, whose primary focus is on making a difference in the lives of children most in need.  JLM organizes day camps, weekend camps and week-long camps for children in countries around the world.  The foundation works with community leaders in each of these areas to find the best location to manage camps of sometimes as many as 600 children for a week.  JLM is active in 8 countries and expanding. us on one of our mission trips.  Email us for updated info on where we will be going this year!

How is this program different?

Being an exchange student is a challenging, rewarding and fun experience. You’re not a tourist or a guest. You’re actually living in your host country as a member of an international family.  Our families come from Europe, Africa, South America and North America with many of our students carrying 2 or more passports.

 

Our students are surfers, horse back riders, scuba divers, explorers, travelers, gardeners, worldly.  An exchange student is an investment for life and complements your formal education in important and exciting ways. 

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• Live with an English-speaking international family.  All of the families speak at least 2 languages.  

• Pick your activity and learn to surf, horse back ride, scuba dive, snorkel, and more!

• Explore Panama with a family who has lived it.

• Experience the challenges and rewards of an expat student.  

• Learn another language.  

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Challenge yourself.

• The experience of living or studying overseas can bring enormous rewards: Open career doors you didn’t know existed.

• Get to know how other students your age from many other countries live in Panama. live and come to see the world from another perspective.

• Learn another language. 

• Test yourself and acquire independence and maturity. 

• Make new friends and appreciate old ones even more.

• Gain experience and judgement.

 

Long after you return home your exchange experience will influence and inform your life. It will provide you with a substantial backdrop from which to make future study and career choices. Employers are increasingly alert to the benefits of student exchange. Your experience will set you apart from the crowd and mark you as someone who has proven themselves in challenging circumstances.