From Egypt to IU, life after abroad can be an adjustment

Senior Jared Boze has a Skype session with friends in Germany, and junior Heather Price drinks English tea.

Boze and Price are working to stay in touch with the cultures and people they recently left. After months of studying abroad, they have returned to campus life at IU.

“The first day I came back, I was driving around my home town and had a little panic attack,” Price said. “I was like, ‘This isn’t London!’”

Students who study abroad might learn another language, apply for financial aid and buy the special plugs to fit into the country-specific outlets, all in preparation to immerse themselves in a new country and culture. But what happens when they come home?

Students have to readjust to life prior to travel, which “can be as trying as acclimating to a new culture,” according to the Office of Overseas Study website.

The environment that once seemed natural can become foreign to students after traveling abroad for an extended time.

Kathleen Sideli, associate vice president for Overseas Study, noted returning to campus is a drastic change of environment.

“All of our programs are in major urban areas, so the biggest adjustment is coming from diverse, bustling cities to the bucolic and homogeneous city of Bloomington,” Sideli said.

Boze recalled staying in his brother’s flat in Cairo in between academic travels. Price recalled catching a bus to anywhere in London.

“I do feel a bit bored now,” Price said. “It was so cool to just take a bus to Big Ben on a whim. Now I can take a ride to Kroger.”

Price, along with more than 200 IU students who returned to campus after studying abroad in the fall, is vulnerable to reverse-culture shock. This is characterized by feelings such as frustration, anxiousness and boredom, according to CIEE.org.

Boze, who is now an Overseas Study peer counselor, studied for 15 months in Austria and Germany and has been acclimating to home since he returned first semester. He felt the biggest shock was readjusting to campus’s way of life.

“It can be very frustrating because there are so many people who don’t realize what is important,” he said.

Boze said he doesn’t want to be pretentious, but that everyday problems here don’t seem so bad to him after seeing extreme poverty and different values in the world.
“Seeing a freshman move in and complain that they couldn’t fit the mini fridge and microwave. ... I was like ‘is that your biggest problem?’” Boze said.

Sideli said students traveling abroad see “the basic requirements of life change completely” and are humbled by the experience.

“We are very self-centered,” Sideli said. “You have to move out of here to realize we are just a piece of the world.”

Both Boze and Price said they felt older and more appreciative after their
experiences abroad.

“I look at everything with new eyes,” Boze said. “I appreciate everything more about Bloomington.”

Price has a new appreciation for Bloomington’s campus transportation.

“Time is very different in London,” Price said. “It takes an hour to get anywhere there. I never used to take the bus here because I thought it took too long, but now I’m like, ‘I can get there in 15 minutes?’ That’s so fast.”

Boze and Price have noticed the changes in themselves, but they have also noticed the possibility of losing touch with their experiences.

“Sometimes it’s scary how easy it is to fall back into your old routine,” Boze said. “You have to put effort into maintaining your connection to the other culture and what you learned.”

Price said that her time abroad and life back at home “feel like two completely different worlds.”

“I look at pictures and I remember those things happening, but it’s hard to make (the two worlds) connect,” Price said.

Sideli said what can be shocking for returning students is feeling so changed while home seems to have remained the same.

“Students coming back have had a very energized experience that is hard to articulate to others,” Sideli said. “They are frustrated that they cannot express all that they experienced in such a compressed time.”

Boze said he has felt this is the biggest challenge of returning to IU, but advised other returning students to be patient.

“What’s frustrating is, you’re trying to work your experiences into every conversation, and you want to tell everybody about them,” Boze said. “You carry all this enthusiasm but can’t share it with everyone. Be patient with people who don’t understand.”

Sideli said maintaining contact is key to dealing with the transition back, as well as integrating experiences into daily life.

She encourages returning students to keep contact with friends they made overseas, join language and culture clubs or show photos to children in elementary schools.

“You can work your new experiences into your life,” Boze said.