Wednesday evening, the Office of Study Abroad held its Welcome Back dinner for those of us who spent the Spring 2012 semester abroad. This dinner gave us all a chance to chat and share experiences and the like, but it also has been making me think about our readjustment back into Pomona and the U.S. Most of us have had a month or two to get used to being stateside again, but we’ve only been at Pomona again for a few weeks and in many ways it is pretty weird. It’s like the time I spent in Cape Town, South Africa, is somehow distant, a blip on an otherwise “normal” college experience.
My aunt got me a little plaque that reads, “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world” (a quote by one Maryanne Radmacher). This plaque now hangs above my bed because it really resonates with me; having lived, studied, explored, and just gotten used to another culture, pace of life, way of being and thinking, I like to think that I have changed and grown (well, I’m still under five feet, but that’s another matter). My experiences abroad were often meaningful and at times confusing and generally just amazing. (If you want to hear more about it, you can check out my other blog).
However, coming back home is another story. I had heard so much about “reverse culture shock” that I expected it to be really really weird going home again—that I’d look the wrong way crossing the street (they drive on the left in South Africa) or that things that were once normal would seem strange. The weird thing was, though, that instead everything at home felt almost too normal. It was almost like I had never left at all! I didn’t want to just slip right back into the place I had before and the way I was before, but it’s hard to change—or maybe just see the ways that I have changed.
Now that I’m back on campus, saying hello to people I haven’t seen since last December, it’s all very odd. It’s hard to think that a year ago I hadn’t even decided where I wanted to go abroad, and now I’ve gone and come back. My junior year (er, semester) at Pomona is kind of a blur, and when people talk about stuff that happened last spring I’m a bit confused. Things that seemed so important or relevant now seem a bit less so. I like to think I’m more globally aware. Then again, Pomona is so familiar, that in other ways it’s not weird—it’s that too normal feeling, like of course I’m here again. I’m always here. I have to admit, though, I wasn’t super excited about coming back this year—maybe it was the whole senior thesis thing, or maybe it was because last semester I was going somewhere very new and exciting. And now I get a bit nostalgic just telling people about the grocery stores, or the minibuses, or my dorm Forest Hill, or a thousand other little things.
Well, that may or may not have made any sense. To gauge what other people were thinking and feeling, I interviewed some fellow returnees from abroad. So here we go!
Naomi (Salamanca, Spain) feels it is weird to be around so many people she knows again at Pomona,because when she was in Salamanca (a big city) and only knew a few people, she didn’t run into people she knew very often. Being back means running into a lot of familiar faces again!
Audrey (Paris, France) finds it difficult to try to summarize in a sentence or less her entire experience abroad for people one hasn’t seen in months. (I can definitely relate to that.) She finds herself expressing this whole study abroad experience in a few words or sentences that can’t be, and really shouldn’t be, summarized so succinctly.
Theresa (Oxford, England) feels that she grew a lot as a person, student, individual and as a member of a more global society being abroad. However, when she came back to Pomona, there so much culture shock, she found herself reverting and basically constrained again in role as a Pomona student with so many (tedious) activities, faced with a general lack of open-mindedness here and global consciousness. Not that Pomona is close-minded, but she feels she outgrew this location in a way and has had to learn how to live it in again (she went abroad in the fall).
Melinda (London, England) says it felt like a vacation to be abroad, and when she was there she didn’t feel like a student in the same way. It seemed like she left her real life behind. Being back, that experience seems like a separate life, so it’s sort of bittersweet.
Karina (Spain) can’t get used to the pace here as it’s much faster. For instance, she finds herself having to eat breakfast on the run. It was much more leisurely in Spain, to the point where it was hard to even find to-go cups there!
Sydney (London, England) thinks it is nice to come back to an education system she is used to—London was all lecture based, with various professors for a single course, and a confusing grading system.
For Leyla, (Florence, Italy) being back here means readjusting to different modes of transportation, since she can’t just walk around everywhere (off-campus) like she could before.
Sarah (Munich, Germany) was kind of shocked by the sheer number of cars on the road when she got back home; in Munich, there were so many other was of getting around, like biking, walking, and the bus that cars just weren’t used as much.
For Brendan (Paris, France) being back in the U.S. on the plus side means Costco, grocery stores being open whenever he wants, and Mexican food. However, being home also is hard because he says he became a bit of a food snob in Paris and wine, cheese, and bread are much more expensive here than in France. On the other hand, the fruit in California is better, more is available all year round, and it’s cheaper. He adds he did miss driving while abroad but appreciated the Metro—since he don’t have to worry about traffic!
Amber (Costa Rica) says everything here is so expensive here compared to Costa Rica, and there are so many options here but she prefers Costa Rica. It is also a bit sad to be monolingual here, and she misses having other languages about and communicating in Spanish.
Jacob, like me, got the travel bug: he wants to explore the world now!
Sienna (Cape Town, SA) also wants to explore L.A more and take advantage of being here. Being in Cape Town, a city, is very different. than being here in the suburbs—the city has much more freedom and a lot more going on. She added that she had a different mentality of money when abroad: Since it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and she had saved up for it, she felt she could make the most of it and live a little.
Eli (Australia) felt it was weird coming back because the culture was so similar in Australia, and yet so different, especially politically. He also mentioned the changes being in a city and having that independence, which is different. Plus, being abroad for him (and many others) means traveling all the time, constantly exploring. He also misses the accents and the slang, just the way of talking and being around Australians.
So there you have it. Lots of good things and bad things—it’s a complex process. I think all of us would agree that it is absolutely amazing and wonderful to go abroad. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.