I joined our Swiss sophomore exchange student Leo Wittwer in the broadcast room to better understand the person behind the camera and learn more about his opinions and aspirations.

JN: What brings you here to America?

LW: An exchange student program brought me here [laughs].

JN: Has your view on America changed since you’ve arrived?

LW: Yeah, definitely, because I thought especially here in Texas it’s more like cowboys and all that stuff, the stereotypes. But that’s definitely not true and it’s a lot of fun.

JN: Okay, that’s nice. Do you plan on visiting again after you leave?

LW: Yeah, definitely. I could even come for a semester in college.

JN:  What have you experienced here so far?

LW: At school, there’s a lot dealing with journalism or band that I’m in. It’s just a lot of fun during football season when we have those pep rallies and the games and I went to all of them because I’m in band and that was a lot of fun.

JN: Oh what instrument do you play?

LW: Alto saxophone

JN:  What was your life like in Switzerland and how does it differ from life in America?

LW: I think that school is a lot more plain over there, so it’s more fun here, but it’s also easier.

JN: What are your passions?

LW: My passion is definitely filming and doing film, but also sports-wise, I like playing handball. You probably don’t know that.

JN: Oh [laughs] what is that?

LW: It’s kind of like soccer, but you play with your hands and with a smaller ball.

JN: How many languages are you fluent in?

LW: Erm, I would say three, or French is not my most fluent since I didn’t use it here at all, didn’t take the class. But in English and German, I’m all fluent.

JN: Can you say something in German for me?

LW: Yes, of course, what should I say?

JN: I don’t know, or maybe in Swiss, since you’re from Switzerland.

LW: Swiss German is just a dialect of German, so you cannot really write it easily. We text in Swiss German, but we don’t write essays or something in that language and at school, we always speak German. I could say like, “Hoi, wie gahts dier,” that’s in Swiss-German. “Hello, how are you.” And then in German it would be, “Hallo, wie geht es dir.”

JN: Oh so it’s sort of like the same.

LW: Yeah, kind of.

JN: Well, thank you so much!