Deciding to study abroad is a big deal. There are a lot of things to consider before deciding to go. Often the most important considerations concern other people. You must decide how to best stay in contact with family and friends while you’re away and how often to be in contact with them. These decisions affect how well your relationships are maintained while studying abroad.
I suggest choosing a mode of communication before you leave and letting everyone know how they can contact you. Often you will not be using your US phone number while abroad and you want to make that known before you leave so you don’t miss out on any important messages. There are countless free communication apps available worldwide to use when you’re abroad, so use the one you’re most comfortable with or the one most of your friends and family have. I chose to use Messenger just because many of my family and friends already have it. Once your mode of communication is chosen, it’s time to decide how often to stay in contact with people at home.
For me, staying in contact with family and friends is very important to be able to maintain relationships while abroad. From the beginning, one of my biggest fears was that I would feel disconnected from my life at home and that would only increase my homesickness. To combat this, I tried to quickly adjust to the time change and establish lengths of time during the day where I could stay in contact with people at home without accidently trying to talk to them at 3am. This was difficult at first, there were definitely a few times where I texted family early in the morning here in France, only to realize a minute later that it was the middle of the night in the US and they would not actually answer for hours. Now, three months in, I think I’ve basically figured out a schedule and I am in constant contact with people back home.
It definitely takes some adjusting and if communicating with people back home is important to you, then the first week or so will most likely be difficult as you adjust to the time change and not always being able to talk to people right away. But you do adjust and can definitely maintain consistent communication if that is what you want.
On the other hand, some people many find it unnecessary to stay in constant contact with people back home while abroad. This contact could lead to fear that you’re missing out or lead to homesickness. Alternately, it may be helpful for you to disconnect a bit from home to be able fully embrace your new country. Therefore, it may help some people to have more infrequent communication with family and friends back home, however, I would definitely suggest checking in as your family and friends probably at least want to hear from you once in awhile! Just because you’re abroad doesn’t mean these relationships are frozen and you don’t have to work on them. You’re family and friends will probably understand if your communication is less frequent, but don’t cut them off entirely.