Student Handbook - Adjusting to Life at Home

Upon returning to your home country, you may feel slightly disoriented or out of place; it may be similar to what you felt when you arrived in your host country. This is called return shock or reverse culture shock. These feelings are temporary and completely normal. But being aware of this phenomenon can help you deal with it proactively. The following are a few strategies to help you cope, along with some additional information on common challenges upon re-entry to your home country.

• Take advantage of re-entry meetings offered by your home university.
• Download music you’ve been listening to abroad and share it with people at home. Also, try cooking them your favorite dish from your host culture.
• Consider integrating some host culture habits into your routine at home.
• Become a mentor for foreign students on your campus, volunteer or work in your international studies or study abroad office. (The ISEP Ambassador program is a structured way to do this.)
• Stay in touch with friends you made abroad. At the same time, it is important to strengthen old relationships and build new ones.
• Submit an entry in the annual ISEP Photo Essay Contest to reflect on your experience. Your advice will also help future ISEP students!
• Remember that the steps you took to adjust to your host culture will be useful for readjusting back to your home environment. Keep busy and set goals. Give yourself time to readjust and keep an open mind.
• Consider ways to use what you’ve gained abroad by practicing your foreign language skills or planning for an international career.

Common Re-entry Stages

(Summarized from Back in the USA: Reflecting on Your Study Abroad Experience and Putting It to Good Work by Dawn Kepets)

Stage One – Disengagement
With your departure date nearing, you begin to concentrate on your return home. It is a feeling of having one foot in your host country and the other foot in your home country. You start thinking about wrapping up your time abroad and making plans for what you’ll do when you get home.

Stage Two – Euphoria
In this stage, you get excited about the prospect of going home. You think about seeing your old friends, eating your favorite foods, and speaking your native language. This stage may occur before leaving your host country or just upon arrival home. It may also be quite brief, especially for those who were very well adjusted to their host culture. Students who were unhappy while abroad may not experience return shock beyond this stage.

Stage Three – Dampened Euphoria
This stage occurs after a short time back in your home county and is characterized by feeling like a foreigner in your own country. You may feel frustrated, alienated, and critical of your own culture. Things that were previously completely normal to you now stand out. You feel like no one really wants to hear about your experience and can’t relate to it. This is a good time to seek out other study abroad returnees. They can provide support and sympathy as you readjust to life back in your home country.

Stage Four – Gradual Readjustment
Things are no longer so shocking and you are less critical about aspects of your culture that bothered you during the dampened euphoria stage. You begin to analyze what you learned abroad and decide how you will apply it to your life in your home country. You may decide to adopt certain host culture characteristics or habits into your daily life. You may begin to think about how to apply what you’ve learned both academically and professionally.

How to Handle Common Re-entry Challenges

Boredom
After being abroad where a daily task was an exciting challenge and you were meeting so many new people, returning to the comfortable routines of home may seem boring. However, with your new international experience and language ability, you can seek out new outlets to channel your interests—new friends, clubs, activities, etc.

No One Wants to Hear
Upon return, you may want to talk non-stop about your time abroad only to find that people don’t seem that interested. Or you may feel frustrated that people ask “How was it?”—as if there is a simple answer to that question. Frequently, people who haven’t had an international experience have a hard time relating to yours and may lose interest once they hear the highlights of your time abroad. You should seek out other study abroad returnees; they will be more receptive to listening to all the details about your time abroad and will have stories to share with you as well. And when discussing your time abroad with less receptive audiences, remember to keep your stories brief and interesting.

It’s Hard to Explain
You experienced so much while abroad that it may be difficult to accurately explain all the feelings you had or describe all the sights you saw. You may feel that you can’t get people to understand it. But that’s okay. Again, this is a good time to talk to other study abroad returnees. Also, journaling or scrap-booking may help you better articulate and express what you went through.

Reverse Homesickness
If you made good friends and grew to love the host culture, it’s only natural that you will miss it upon leaving. Luckily, technology makes it easy to keep in touch with your new friends via email, Skype, Facebook, etc. It may help to seek out and befriend people at home who are from your host country.

Relationships Have Changed
Just as you’ve changed while abroad, people back home have undergone changes while you were away. You may notice that you relate to people differently than before. Whether positive or negative, this is normal. Handle it with patience and without losing sight of why you were close to the person in the first place.

People See “Wrong” Changes or Misunderstand You
Some people may be upset by changes in your behavior or ideas. This negativity is often rooted in feelings of jealousy, inferiority, or superiority. This phase normally passes quickly if you are aware of how people react to you and are willing to explain these changes in a way that isn’t boastful or defensive.

Feeling of Alienation or Seeing Home with Critical Eyes
After experiencing a different culture, you may find yourself critical of some aspects of your home culture. Keep these comparisons to yourself and know that you had to go through these same feelings upon arrival in your host culture. In due time, you will gain a more balanced perspective and realize the strengths and weaknesses of both cultures without being so critical.

Inability to Apply New Knowledge and Skills
You might feel like your newly acquired linguistic, cultural, and practical coping skills aren’t relevant at home. However, with a little patience and persistence you will find ways to use these skills. Your international office on campus should have resources to help with this.

Loss/Compartmentalization of Experience
After getting back into the routine of life at home, you may feel like your experience is slipping away from you. Don’t let this happen. Keep the experience alive by maintaining contact with the friends you made while abroad and sharing your experience with those who can relate to it.