So, you’re back from the most amazing semester of your life! In the beginning, you’re overwhelmed with excitement. You can’t wait to see your family and friends, eat all the American food you’ve been craving and watch your favorite TV shows without English subtitles. As the excitement winds down and you suddenly find yourself back in the same old boring routine, you’re probably thinking “now what?” Before leaving to go abroad, there were countless meetings and orientations developed to help you deal with culture shock in your new country but no one told you how hard the culture shock coming back home was going to be. Here are a couple of do’s and don’ts to help you get back in the swing of things after being abroad.
Tell your stories…in moderation
Believe me, your family and friends want to hear about your semester! For some it’s a chance to live vicariously through your experiences and for others it’s a chance to prepare them if they plan on studying abroad. But like most other stories you tell, there’s a time and a place for everything. Don’t bombard your friends with story after story about your crazy spring break trip across Spain and Portugal. Instead, wait until something comes up with your friends that trigger those memories. Your friends will be more intrigued if the stories are relevant to the conversation and it won’t come off like you’re bragging.
Make a scrapbook!
While being abroad, it goes without saying that you take an endless amount of pictures. Yes, the places you go and the things you see are once-in-a-lifetime chances, but instead of uploading 20 pictures of the Eiffel tower from different angles, pick just a few to put up on Facebook. When you get home, don’t let all of these amazing pictures just sit on your desktop. Go through your pictures and develop the ones that mean something to you.
Once these pictures are developed, start making a scrapbook. This can be a tedious task, and it does take a lot of time, but spread it out. If you do a little bit here and there, it won’t seem so overwhelming. Every time you work on it, it’ll be a way to reminisce about the crazy adventures you had!
Stay in touch
Every study abroad program is different; some have you living with other American study abroad students, others have you living with host families, and some have you rooming with students from your abroad country. Either way, you form a bond with these people. They become your friends, your family, your travel companions — you name it.
If you’re lucky enough to study abroad with people who go to the same school at home, make sure you set aside time to get together with them every once in a while. If your roommates are from other schools, make plans to visit each other if it’s a reasonable distance.Host families can be challenging to keep in touch with but most of them will have Facebook or email that you can use.
Keeping in touch with these people is essential to adjusting to life back in the states. As much as your friends and family want to hear about your semester, it’s hard for them to relate and even harder to understand what you’re going through when you start breaking down in tears because you found an old plane ticket for a weekend getaway to London. Keeping in touch can be a life saver when you just need to talk and reminisce with someone who knows what you’re going through.
Ease your way back into it
Most abroad classes don’t really compare, difficulty-wise, to the classes most college students take back at home. I know my classes consisted of wine tastings and walking around Florence looking at historical paintings. Needless to say, it was nothing like taking an 8 a.m. anatomy class. If you studied abroad in the fall and are coming back for spring semester, make sure you don’t overdo it when registering for classes. Obviously, take classes you need but don’t overdo it by taking 20 credits, 15 of which are your hardest classes yet! You’re going to want to take it easy and get adjusted to school back in the states too. If you’re studying abroad in the spring and coming home into summer vacation, give yourself a little break before starting your summer internship or summer classes. Relax and reflect on your experience.
Being back from abroad doesn’t have to be seen as waking up from this incredible dream. Preserve your experience and take everything you learned about the world and yourself and apply it to your life back at home! If you do that, your life in America will have just as much excitement as your life abroad!