Re-entry
As difficult as it may be to believe, returning home after studying abroad is sometimes more challenging than going abroad initially. The reasons for this are that you will have matured and developed new interests that your friends and family may not be as familiar with or as interested in. You may also experience that ‘nothing changes’ at home. These are all normal feelings and you may have ‘reverse culture shock’ in that you progress through the same stages that you did while abroad.
There are some productive ways to handle this:
- As a means of readjusting and staying in touch with the international scene, you may want to consider contacting students who have been abroad, who are currently abroad, or who are thinking about going abroad.
- There are many ways of maintaining contact with friends you made overseas, foreign and domestic, and also of remaining in touch with the culture you entered and now have left--via letters, e-mail, phoning, magazines, books, etc. and other means.
- Discussing things and sharing experiences with others is almost always worthwhile. Remembering what it was like for you to have been, for a time, a 'foreigner' should inspire you to try to get to know the international students on your campus or others from 'minority' backgrounds, who may themselves be feeling some of the same social dislocation and alienation you once felt when you were overseas.
- The key is to build on the cross-cultural coping skills you now possess and to find conscious ways of integrating your new 'self' into your evolving personal and academic life, not seeing it as a 'dream' or something irrelevant to your future.
Contact the Study Abroad Office
Bessy Bennellick
Director of Study Abroad
Ph: 724-805-2828
Fax: 724-532-5083
elizabeth.bennellick@stvincent.edu