Lea Birnbacher, 16, took part in commencement ceremonies Friday at Seneca Valley High School along with her senior classmates.

But she didn't get a diploma.

Birnbacher, an exchange student from Spain, has two more years of high school to complete once she's back home in Barcelona.

But she doesn't mind that the classes she's taken at Seneca Valley don't translate into credits toward her own graduation.

“It really doesn't matter because the personal growth and experience is much more important to me,” said Birnbacher.

Birnbacher is the latest exchange student placed at Seneca Valley through the Rotary Youth Exchange program of the Rotary Club of Zelienople.

“We've been involved with the Rotary Youth Exchange for a long time,” said Linda Andreassi, director of communications for the school district. “It depends on the interest. Some years we have one student; some years we have several.”

This year, Birnbacher was the sole exchange student arriving in August to stay with her host parents, the Rev. Reid Moon and his wife, Krista, of Zelienople.

Krista Moon said, “They (the Zelienople Rotary Club) were trying to do a foreign exchange student, and they knew we had experience.”

Arriving the day after her 16th birthday, Birnbacher said she's used to living in different countries.

“I was born in Germany, but I've been living in Spain since I was two,” she said.

In that time she's picked up four languages, German, Spanish, English (because that was the language her German mother and Spanish stepfather could communicate in at first) and Catalan, because Barcelona is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia.

She admits that being immersed for almost a year among English speakers has dulled her German skills.

“I've forgotten it since I came here. I need to speak with my German relatives more,” Birnbacher said.

And while she is going back to Spain after the Moons take her sightseeing to some spots across the country, Birnbacher said, “I don't want to go back to my old school. In public school everyone has to take the same classes: Spanish, Catalan, global math, history,” she said.

She said she was surprised by the number of elective classes available to her at Seneca Valley.

“I took molecular biology, honors calculus and ceramics. I love ceramics. And I love calculus and I don't know why,” she said.

“It's not really challenging,” she said of calculus. “I'm getting A's but I don't think I'm gifted in math.”

This opportunity to try new subjects and discover untapped abilities, Birnbacher said, is one of her favorite experiences of her year in the United States.

“I feel you have to find out who you are and what you like, and in Spain people end up going to college and getting a degree they may not like because they need money to survive,” she said.

“When I go back I'm going to go to an international high school with an international curriculum that has more choices,” Birnbacher said.

“I plan to go to college and probably pursue a medical career, but I change a lot, but I'm pretty sure that's going to stay in my head.”

Birnbacher has experienced more than just a smorgasbord of class options during her time at Seneca Valley.

She traveled with the high school chorus to Walt Disney World.

“Epcot Center, I loved it,” she said. “The different countries, I got to see Germany, Morocco.”

“But the best attraction would be 'Soaring,'” she said, referring to the theme parks flight-motion simulator that takes the visitor over mountains and across oceans.

Krista Moon also took her to Kennedy Space Center where they met astronaut Winston Scott.

Birnbacher said she also attended two proms, Seneca Valley's and one at Venango Catholic High School in Oil City.

Reid Moon said Birnbacher was invited to the Venango Prom by fellow Rotary Exchange student Aneli Nagashiro of Bolivia who is attending Franklin High School. Four Rotary Exchange students in all attended Venango's open prom.

And, Reid Moon said, the Spanish exchange student has been visiting local Rotary Clubs to get them interested in starting their own student exchange programs.

After the school year, Krista Moon said they plan to take their host daughter on a few trips to North Carolina and Washington, D.C., before she boards a flight Aug. 4 to return to Spain.

“She's never had homesickness or anything like that,” Krista Moon said. “She's got incredible spirit. She is independent. She's adventurous and she's very smart.”

Birnbacher said a lot has happened in her nearly yearlong absence, and she will have to adjust to some changes.

“My parents bought a horse (for her younger brother and sister) while I was gone. I wanted another dog,” Birnbacher said.

Whatever the future may hold, Birnbacher expects it will involve more travel.

“I don't want to stay in Spain. I've seen Spain,” she said.