Spending a semester abroad illuminates many positive emotions and memories for a student. The opportunity to explore the world while managing academics in your early twenties with other students is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You learn so much about yourself while overseas and truly cherish every moment in a short amount of time. While there are many resources to prepare you for this experience, there is not much conversation about the emotions you will feel coming back to your home.
Coming back to your home is both nostalgic and confusing at the same time. I say this in the most light-hearted way possible. To many people, your home is the most important thing in your life. Seeing your family is the best thing after not seeing them for so long. Being back in a familiar place is comforting. Parallel to that, your home university is where you truly started to become independent from your parents and your adolescent life. It is where you meet many meaningful friends that will last a lifetime. It is a place where you first started to learn more about yourself and created a foundation for your success. If there is so much relief and positivity to coming back home, then why is there a void?
Going abroad is an extremely unique experience. It is the first time for most students to experience a new culture and environment without the comfort of parents and lifelong friends. Many people choose to travel alone. Putting yourself out there in this environment is scary, but extremely rewarding. You jump out of your comfort zone and break all of your boundaries. Doing all of this in a short amount of time makes any real-life issues you are dealing with at home go away. Your sole focus is to travel everywhere and soak up every moment you can while abroad. The void from post-abroad should be normalized and welcomed. For me, the void hit instantly. The feeling of not being able to see the people I met from all around the world daily was upsetting. Not being able to go back to my small European apartment, which somehow fit sixteen girls, that I adored so much was heartbreaking.
So…how can that void be eliminated?
The first step is to acknowledge that void and to tell yourself that it is normal. Obviously, you will be missing the incredible semester you have had in a country somewhere around the world. You need to find things that you did abroad that made you feel like the best version of yourself and incorporate them into your life at your home university. Something I recommend is finding activities outside of campus that you enjoy doing that are similar to what you did while abroad. Go on walks in the parks, read that book on a bench, go to those small unique coffee shops, and so on. Plan a trip to go back to that European city you studied at with all your friends abroad. Keep up with the group chat! Do not let those connections you made vanish just because of the distance! The experience might be over but the memories will last a lifetime.
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