How many times have you gone to your favorite restaurant after it had a new menu and found that your favorite meal is gone?
How often have you gone to the grocery store to look for vanilla extract to finish making mom’s famous cookies and learned that the flavoring you need was moved to another part of the store?
How often have you told a story that you thought was cool to your friends and in return received that infamous blank stare?
Those feelings you have are similar to those of VCU students and others have when they return from studying abroad.
“Normal things aren’t the same,” said Rebecca Honts, a senior art major, who spent a year studying abroad in Austria and fell victim to what many call “reverse culture shock.”
“Being used to a different way of life,” she said, “may cause reverse culture shock. Going there you expect new things, when you come back, things are different, yet the same. It’s the little things you get used to over there that are different here.”
Jennifer Ludovici, VCU’s director of international education, describes reverse culture shock as normal activities becoming extraordinary. People, she said, grow the most when they are taken out of their comfort zone.
“Reverse culture shock is very important to deal with. It is vital in understanding the U.S.,” she said. “It is not always pleasant, but it’s always enlightening.”
Nat Adams, a senior anthropology major who spent ’02 – ’03 studying in Iceland, said you see things now that you took for granted before – some things you put in your subconscious.
“When you get ready to go overseas you’re prepared and excited,” he said. “When you get home, you realize it’s over.”
Reconnecting with old friends and vice versa seems to be the major obstacle when students return home, Ludovici said, especially those who have never been overseas.
“Students don’t often come back with problems. It’s more of a readjustment period,” she said. “You go through an experience where you feel so changed, and then you come back to a place where nothing is different.”
Honts said the learning process is much different overseas than it is in the states. It’s a lot less demanding.
“They are very lenient on deadlines,” Honts said. “I had an essay due my last semester over there and didn’t turn it in until a few months later. I wrote it here and e-mailed it to my professor.”
Adams, on the other hand, said he was much more interested in taking in the culture.
“I didn’t want to spend my time sitting in my room studying. I wanted to get out and enjoy things.”
Learning to get back into a structured study habit was difficult for him, he said, but he continued his normal curriculum and took the transition rather smoothly.
VCU, Ludovici said, lacks classes that could help smooth the transitions for American students returning home from studying abroad.
“It’s a great idea, and I think it would be a wonderful thing for us to have if our office were a little more funded, but it’s not possible (now),” Ludovici said, emphasizing that maintaining overseas connections plays a major role in helping people cope with the culture shock.
“Many students have reunions with other American students that they studied with abroad,” she said.
Adams has maintained at least one important connection from his time in Iceland – he met his girlfriend there while he studying abroad.
“She came home with me after my first trip there. It helped ease the process of coming home,” he said. “It gave me a chance to show her around my home and allowed me to be a tourist again.”
There are many things that people returning to the United States have to deal with that they don’t while they are abroad.
“The pace of life is much different. Here you are always rushing,” Honts said. “There is always time to be relaxed there.”
Adams said the most frustrating thing to deal with here is the lack of public transportation compared to Europe.
“I don’t have a car here,” he said, “so it is very difficult to go to my dad’s house that is 15 minutes away.”
He does not have any regrets though. He said the experience changed his life.
“Reverse culture shock is a good thing – it’s very important,” Adams said. “It allows you to be critical of your own country without forcing yourself to do it.”