When most study abroad students return home, they feel that they do not belong or fit into their home environment any longer. These feelings of loneliness and isolation while in their home country cause confusion as they try to re-enter the routine of their previous life. It is very common to feel frustrated with the mundane familiarity because while overseas, students had the opportunity to enjoy constant excitement and exposure to new aspects of life. Therefore, the familiar is very boring, and they long to be overseas again.
Perhaps the most unpleasant realization about coming home again is that students may go through more cultural adjustment upon returning home than they experienced when going abroad. Students are often caught off-guard by this, since they thought this would be easy - we are going home, right? Wrong.
No one expects students to have any dissonance on the return; the expectation is to resume their lives again, as if they had never left. Friends and family might not be receptive to hearing about experiences abroad or may tend to dismiss the changes and personal growth the student has gone through as minor and temporary. Re-entry adjustment (in severe cases, reverse culture-shock) catches us off-guard because it is unexpected.
There are strategies which are useful for any cross-cultural sojourn, whether going overseas, or coming home. This is not a definitive list, but one which will give you some ideas.
-
Give some thought to your return. What intellectual and emotional changes have you undergone as a result of your time abroad? Try to articulate just how you think you have changed.
-
Be patient with your friends and family who are trying to understand your recent experiences. Listen to them, too, about the changes that they underwent during the time you were away. Time does not stand still for anyone. People change.
-
Expect some negative feelings about your “home” culture. You are viewing it, perhaps for the first time, from the perspective of a foreigner. A common tendency is to be highly critical of shortcomings which were not seen before you left. Remember that there are positive and negative aspects of all cultures.
-
Identify what you like about both cultures and try to incorporate the best of these characteristics and behaviors into your life.
-
Find ways to keep the “international” part of you alive, to make it part of the new you. This may mean becoming involved in clubs or activities on campus or in the community to maintain your language skills, doing volunteer work with ethnic groups to use your cross-cultural skills, or hosting a foreign student now that you know what it is like to be one. Keep in touch with your fellow program participants.
-
Use the cross-cultural adaptation skills you developed abroad, e.g., keep active, maintain a sense of humor, find a support group, expect differences, allow yourself to make mistakes, and stay flexible during your readjustment to home.
-
Realize once again that change can be stimulating and this could be your chance to develop in new directions.
-
Set some long-term goals, which may indeed involve finding ways to return to your study site and country.
-
Suspend judgement, and always, always, always keep your sense of humor!
In addition, students may find helpful information in Module 2 of the On-line Cultural Training Resource for Study Abroad.
Some students will have a more difficult re-entry than others, just as some have a more difficult adjustment overseas. The degree of shock and the types of challenges you will face depend on several factors. Among these are how long you have been away, whether you were immersed and comfortable in the culture or remained a “visitor,” if you have a hard time with life-style adjustment in general, whether you kept up-to-date on trends and events at home, whether or not you have a fellow expatriate with whom to share your experience, and what type of living conditions you experienced or witnessed while abroad.
Research suggests that the better a student adjusts overseas, the worse will be the reverse culture-shock. Any differences in the home environment can drastically affect a student’s transition. The mechanics of reintegration – what the student needs to do to readjust, are very important as is the home country’s ability to tolerate difference. Each of these factors contributes to the overall effect on the student.
Even though you are back at UNL, we still think of you as “study abroad students,” and are happy to talk with you about your experiences, good and bad. Feel free to stop by the office if you would like to share. We are always interested in seeing your photographs and may ask to use them in our publications or on our web pages.
Again, welcome home, and welcome back to UNL! We hope to see as many of you as possible and hope you will use what you have learned on your study abroad program both to enhance your own life as well as life on campus in general.
This document is based on similar publications by the University of Colorado at Boulder and by Duke University.
|
