One thing Sam Hawe had to adjust to after coming back from a learning abroad trip was the Starbucks sizes.
“The normal French coffee is small and costs two euros,” Hawe said. “You can get something three times that size for $1.75 here [in the states].”
After spending four months in the Dominican Republic and two months in France, the difference in coffee cup sizes — and food portions in general — was a minor adjustment Hawe had to make when back at home. However, the bigger struggles, Hawe said, were adapting emotionally and mentally to being back in the United States.
“Coming back from the Caribbean was really rough for me because I fell in love with the culture and how expressive it is,” Hawe said. “There, if you’re feeling something, you do it — you hear people singing in the grocery store or crying on the streets. Coming back felt a little emotionally repressive, and it was more of relearning to tamp myself down.”
Hawe’s experience can be defined as “reverse culture shock.” Beth Laux, Learning Abroad director at the U, described this phenomenon as “an emotional and psychological stage of readjustment similar to a student’s initial challenges when they arrive abroad and when they’re adapting to the host country.”
“What I think makes reverse culture shock unique is that students don’t expect it,” Laux said. “We spend a lot of time before we go abroad preparing everything, from what we pack, what documents we need, what day-to-day life is. We spend almost no time preparing for what it’s like to come home.”
Laux said reverse culture shock is the result of the dissonance between what students expect to come home to and the reality of what they actually encounter upon returning.
Many students change significantly on an emotional level during their program. They often become more creative and flexible. They don’t interact with their environment the same way, and Laux said it can that take a toll on the student because they have to come to terms with these feelings and understand them as a result of their experience abroad.
“One of the biggest emotional challenges for students is trying to not only adapt to their own changes but try to figure out how other people are adapting to the changes within them,” Laux said.
The shift in cultures can be a difficult transition. Taylor Coffey, who served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile, said the hardest part was trying to relate to friends and family after her experience.
“I had to get used to eating and sleeping on a different schedule, and it took about six months for my body to feel normal again,” she said. “It really helped me to go back to school and have a routine that kept my mind occupied.”
On the intellectual level of the process, students can come back and find it difficult to adapt to a traditional classroom setting because they were immersed in an environment that allowed them to have a more hands-on educational experience. In addition, some students come back and discover they want to pursue majors and classes they never considered before. Laux suggests students seek out courses that provide a similar curriculum they had while abroad or find ways to implement those elements individually through their course work.
“Reverse culture shock is a challenge for students, and lots of students don’t necessarily recognize what it is,” Laux said. “So identifying it, understanding it and then finding coping strategies can be a challenge.”
Some ways Laux suggests students deal with reverse culture shock include keeping busy when home, as well as continuing to keep in touch with the friends they made abroad. Another way is putting new knowledge and skills gained while abroad to use. Laux recommends joining organizations on campus or in the community, such as language or volunteer programs.
Even though readjusting can be difficult, Laux said there are plenty of resources to help students through the process. Students can contact the Learning Abroad Office, the U’s Counseling Center or faculty who specialize in the areas that a student spent time in.
Hawe said what helped her in readjusting to life back home was going into the situation with the same mindset as she had going abroad.
“Allow yourself to be immersed,” Hawe said. “Treat it like a new experience and a new adventure.”
@cynthia_luu