For international students, choosing to study in the United States for high school means that it's not just the school that truly changes.
The city you see when you wake up each day, who you eat with, what you can do after class, how you spend your weekends, and how you adapt to a new culture will all become part of your study abroad experience.
DME Academy is located in Daytona Beach, Florida. While the area may be best known for its beaches and racing culture, what's really important to students isn't "living in a tourist city," but rather how to gradually establish their own daily routine in a new community.
At DME, we hope that students will not only grow in classrooms and training fields, but also develop a more complete understanding of American high school life through campus activities, peer interaction, community experience, and city life.
Daytona Beach is more than just a beach.
When Daytona Beach is mentioned, many people immediately think of the Atlantic coast.
The area around Daytona Beach boasts approximately 23 miles of coastline, and the beach is truly an integral part of city life. For DME students, the beach is not just for sightseeing; it's naturally connected to campus life, the sports environment, and weekend activities.
DME has its own beach volleyball courts and also uses the beach volleyball facilities at Daytona Beach for some training and activities. Beach-related activities are also arranged as part of student life.
But Daytona Beach isn't just about the sea.
This city has its own local culture, history, and community rhythm. Daytona Beach will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2026, and motorsports culture has long been an important part of the city's identity. The Daytona 500, the Daytona International Speedway, and the lifestyle of a coastal city all contribute to shaping the city's distinctive character.
For international students coming to the United States for the first time, living here also means starting to get to know a place that is completely different from their original living environment.
Campus life will not be limited to classes and training.
Student athletes typically have very busy schedules.
Classes, team training, physical fitness, recovery, homework, and competitions often take up most of the day.
But we don’t want DME’s high school life to consist of just “school and sports”.
DME's Student Life team organizes a variety of campus events, including Homecoming, Prom, and various themed activities. Students have also participated in Spirit Week, student and faculty events, and various social gatherings.
These may be familiar high school traditions for American students; but for many international students, Homecoming, Prom, or Spirit Week may be new experiences.
The value of these activities goes beyond just being "fun".
It gives students the opportunity to step outside their original team roles, interact with classmates from different sports, and truly participate in the campus culture common in American high schools.
Weekends and extracurricular activities allow students to see a different side of America.
DME's Student Life program also takes students off-campus, including beach activities and trips to iconic Florida attractions such as Disney and Universal Studios.
For international students, these trips are not the entirety of their study abroad experience, but they provide an opportunity to get to know their surroundings with classmates outside of their busy academic and training schedules.
What's truly important is not which tourist attractions you visit, but rather that students start planning their time together, traveling together, and handling the little things in life together with their classmates.
Many cross-cultural friendships are not deliberately built in the classroom, but rather formed naturally when eating together, taking a ride, participating in activities, watching games, or going out on weekends.
Living on campus, life itself is a part of daily life.
DME's residential students do not leave the school immediately after each day's training.
Dormitories, restaurants, study spaces, rest areas, and sports facilities are all within the daily living area that students use.
Currently, DME's accommodation facilities include approximately 18,000 square feet of dormitory space, along with a restaurant, learning center, student lounge, laundry facilities, and other living spaces.
This means that students' high school life is not divided into three completely different places: "going to class," "training," and "going home."
Classmates may also be roommates, teammates may have breakfast together, and they may read together or chat in common areas after class.
This lifestyle usually requires an adjustment period for international students.
But it is precisely because learning, sports and life are interconnected that students have more opportunities to truly build their own communities, rather than just getting to know a few classmates in the classroom.
Eating is also a part of campus life.
For high school students living away from home, meals are often more important than they imagine.
Students need to maintain their physical strength between classes and high-intensity training every day, and eating together is one of the most natural scenarios for social interaction on campus.
The DME campus offers daily dining services, and students dine in the cafeteria with classmates from different countries and sports.
For international students, differences in eating habits are also part of cultural adaptation.
At first, you might miss the food from your hometown or find it difficult to get used to the American dining pace, but over time, the dining table often becomes one of the fastest places to learn about different cultures.
You'll start to know what your roommate eats in their hometown, how they celebrate holidays in a certain country, and you might even introduce your own food culture to others.
Cross-cultural living often begins with these very ordinary little things.
International students are not a minority, but rather an integral part of the campus culture.
DME has been recruiting students from different parts of the world for a long time.
This means that international students are not the only ones who need to adapt to a new environment when they arrive on campus.
In the same class or team, there may be students from different states in the United States, as well as from Europe, Asia, Africa, or Latin America.
Everyone uses the same language for classes and training, but their backgrounds are not the same.
This requires students to practice something very important every day: how to get along with people who are different from themselves.
Sometimes the difference is just an accent, sometimes it's a communication style, or it could be a different understanding of time, team, diet, or lifestyle.
We hope that students will gradually learn that they do not need to abandon their own culture to integrate into a new environment.
True international life means being able to express yourself and understand others.
Community service helps students understand "where they live".
At DME, student life is more than just on-campus activities.
Community service is also part of campus culture.
In the past, students have participated in activities such as food collection, assisting young athletes, and providing support after hurricanes.
This kind of experience is especially meaningful for international students.
Because "living in Daytona Beach" and "being part of the Daytona Beach community" are two different things.
When students begin to participate in community activities, connect with local residents, or understand the issues facing the city, their understanding of studying abroad becomes more complete than that on campus.
Community engagement and a sense of responsibility are an integral part of American high school education.
Real American high school life is actually quite ordinary.
Many students imagine American high school life through movies, social media, or YouTube before going abroad.
Once you actually get here, you'll find that most of the days are actually quite ordinary.
I get up in the morning, go to class, train, eat, do homework, chat with friends, and then prepare to do it again the next day.
There may be occasional homecoming events, competitions, weekend activities, or off-campus trips, but what truly constitutes the study abroad experience are often those seemingly unremarkable daily routines.
You start having regular friends to eat with.
I started to know which teacher's class I needed to prepare for in advance.
I'm starting to get used to my own training schedule.
At first, I didn't need anyone to remind me to do the laundry.
I'm starting to realize that I want to rest on weekends, but I also want to participate in activities with my classmates.
As these things gradually become habits, a place that was once unfamiliar slowly becomes a part of life.
We hope students truly "live" at DME
DME Academy is, of course, a school that focuses on the development of student-athletes.
But we don't want students to only remember training and games when they look back on their high school life.
We hope they also remember living with their roommates, their first Homecoming experience, chatting with friends from different countries, going to the beach, participating in community service, and gradually finding their own rhythm in an unfamiliar city.
Because the real changes brought about by studying abroad often go beyond just the resume.
It also happens in our daily lives.
Daytona Beach is the city where DME Academy is located, but for the students who actually come here to study, it may eventually become more than just a place name.
It will become the backdrop of a high school life, a place where a group of friends live together, and one of the stops where I learn to be independent, adapt, and grow.
