This book is designed to help students through the challenges that they encounter when they cross cultures for college study abroad. In addition to giving students some “heads-up” on the sorts of cultural and emotional upheavals to expect, this book provides simple exercises that allow students to adjust to their new cultural surroundings while discovering new things about themselves. As students use this book, they also create a journal that records the details of one of the most important experiences of their college years.
We have made this book small, by design. We want it to be easy to carry, easy to engage with. We have also designed exercises that are focused and easily accomplished. (As college students know better than anyone, when a task is too large it can be overwhelming, but completing a small obtainable goal is gratifying). Colleen Ballerino Cohen is an anthropologist who has 25 years experience teaching students how to adjust to and learn about different cultures. Grace Myhill is a social worker who has extensive experience counseling college students, and has developed workshops for students returning from study abroad. We both know that going away and returning home again presents intense and surprising challenges. We have combined our experience and knowledge to
- help students with the emotional and social fine-tuning that living and studying in another culture inevitably requires
- provide useful exercises for getting to know and becoming adept at living in another culture
- help students make the transition back into their own culture, and apply their study abroad experience to the rest of their college experience.
On a more personal note, it is our hope that you, our reader, will enjoy reflecting on the questions and ideas presented in this book. As you use this book to become familiar with the new culture that you are living in, and to discover the person that you are changing into through the study abroad experience, you are also writing your own story. This story will become an important touchstone to you, as you write it, and will continue to provide you important insights and rich memories years after your return from study abroad. Enjoy!
Colleen Ballerino Cohen is Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies at Vassar College. In addition to conferring with students on their study abroad projects, she frequently takes students on summer fieldwork projects with her, in the British Virgin Islands.
Grace Myhill, M.S.W., has counseled students at Wellesley College and at Clark University before and after their Junior Year Abroad experiences. Both as a college student and afterwards, she has lived in other cultures and returned home again.
Chapter 3: Feelings of Hostility, Frustration and Loss…
… may begin to set in after several days, weeks, or months in your new home. The new environment may feel less comfortable than what you left behind. Your new culture may have a different sense of time and space. Communication may be quite challenging, even when you are saying and understanding the words perfectly.
If you’d like, take a few moments to reflect on your new home and record your thoughts or feelings with stories, images or photographs.
My feelings about my new home:
Notice how you are feeling now about the home you left.
My feelings about the home I left:
You might want to spend some time with the objects or photographs that you brought from home, or you can review your goals and reasons for wanting to come abroad. It may help to try to venture out into your new environment in a way that would feel comfortable, with someone or alone. A good thing to do to become familiar with your new cultural environment, and to gain a deeper sense of its “placeness,” is to make a map. Go out into your neighborhood and sketch out what you think are the major landmarks – stores, parks, etc. Ask people to point out the key features. These may be different from what you think they are. Why are they important? In addition to giving you a sense of cultural fluency, this is a great way to meet people and to engage your host family in your process of becoming familiar with their home country.