Why studying abroad for a full year could be great for you.
Travelling and studying abroad is an absolute adventure. But, like all things, there’s what you see on Instagram (i.e. all the picture-perfect moments students talk about) and then there’s reality (i.e. the very real challenges of being away from what you’re familiar with for an extended period of time).
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It’s important to set some expectations that studying abroad has its fun moments and also its harder moments. However, both the fun and hard times make up a holistic study-abroad experience. All the advice below is from my own experiences of being fortunate enough to study in Geneva, Switzerland, in my 4th year of university. I hope this post helps you see the rewards and realities of studying abroad for a full year and I hope it helps you set realistic expectations if, and when, you do study abroad.
See my post Why You Should Travel While You’re Still in School to read about the benefits of studying abroad while you’re still in school.
The Truth about Homesickness
The Sell
Why would anyone experience homesickness, you wonder? You’re in a new place. Naturally, everything, and anything, and anyone will seem fascinating. You’ll be tasting new food and becoming fluent in the host language you’re learning. You’ll be meeting new people, attending new events, seeing exotic places. You’ll be so busy having fun you won’t think about home or why you left it. The new country will excite you so much that you’ll be constantly engaged in something new.
The Reality
No one is ever constantly doing or seeing new things. You’ll collapse from the pure exhaustion of it all if that were true! Homesickness usually sets in around 6 months if you’re staying in a new country for a year. It usually happens when the novelty starts to fade and the initial excitement has worn off. There’s no fixed time when homesickness happens though, and everyone will experience it a bit differently.
The things that seemed new and exciting in the beginning might turn out not to be that charming at all after a few months. In the beginning you might’ve been eager to put your language abilities to the test. You might’ve felt euphoric bumbling your way through town in a different language. Then reality sets in and you might get kind of sick of fumbling around in a language you don’t speak very well (that was me), get tired of trying, and wish the locals could just understand you.
It then dawns on you that you really are in a new place and that you can’t simply pack up and leave. Well, actually you can, but that probably won’t be the most practical decision.
For all you know, you’ve committed to this whole study-abroad thing and you’re going to see it through.
I find homesickness hits hardest when what you’re familiar with isn’t around. At the peak of my homesickness there wasn’t much I wouldn’t have given to have walked into a Tim Hortons. Isn’t Swiss coffee supposed to be superior? Of course it is! But I wanted the familiarity of Timmies and the pang of homesickness hit hardest then when I realized that’s what I missed the most from home.
The Takeaway
There’s no magic pill to getting over homesickness. It really depends on how motivated you are to make your study-abroad trip worth it. Getting through homesickness is about developing a new sense of familiarity in a new place. This means creating a new routine, building new habits, and creating a new social circle. It could mean establishing a new workout routine, setting schedules for studying and recreation, and meeting up with new friends on a weekly basis.
A good friend I met in Geneva, Eugénie, and I would get together every weekend for dinner. This helped us both establish a good friendship and get over homesickness at the same time. I also set a schedule on when I’d call my family through What’s App to let them know how I’m doing. With technology these days, it’s really easy to stay in touch without having to pay long distance fees.
Once you have a routine set, you’ll successfully get past missing home because you’re so focused on building friendships, acing your courses, learning to cook new recipes, and planning trips. Soon you’ll be dining and shopping like a local. Then you’ll look back and think Wait? I was homesick?. Believe it or not, after having spent a year abroad, you might not even want to go home.
Because you’ll have made a new one.
The Pitfalls and Pride of Studying in a Different Language
I learned French throughout my entire academic life (elementary to university) and decided I’d go to Geneva, Switzerland for a year to really put my French skills into practice.
The Sell
You’re confident in your skills. You scored As in all your language classes. You know the preterit and simple past like the back of your hand. You can conjugate the pluperfect like nobody’s business. You do not confuse le futur proche with le futur simple. You can read, write, and think fluently in the language you’ve studied from grade 1 to university and you think you’ve mastered the language, until…
The Reality
Ugh…I fumbled around so much in French when I first landed in Geneva. And that’s when it hit me: I knew the language theoretically, but I didn’t know it practically.
On the humiliation scale, I was a full 10 (super embarrassed). I had studied the language for years, but since I live in an anglophone city I hardly spoke French outside of the classroom. So I felt like I didn’t understand a word at all when I landed in Geneva. And it was embarrassing. All my exams were oral exams in French. And I passed them, but I’m sure it’s because the professors took pity on me. Again, it was embarrassing.
The whole point of my story is not to discourage you but to gently remind you that theory and practice are two different things. Even though I struggled with the language in the beginning, I eventually improved thanks to lots of help from friends and shopkeepers.
The Takeaway
At the end of the day, you plough through the language and string words together as coherently as possible. Don’t overthink it; you’ll learn vocabulary as you go. Keep a notebook and write down common phrases and words you hear. Thanks to help from friends, I did much better in my final exams than I did in my midterms. I also noted down common questions that caught me off guard during the midterms and tried to anticipate what questions the professors might ask in my finals. I then rehearsed my answers and when the exams came, I just spat the words out as coherently as possible. I also passed the final exams, but I’d like to think it was due a bit to my added efforts this time. After 9 months in the host country, my French skills vastly improved thanks to being immersed in the language.
Soaking up the language and practicing it will take time, but being immersed in the environment will help a lot. With that being said, it’s still up to you to put in the effort to speak with locals and practice.
But you can do it.
After a full-year abroad, you’ll be so used to the host language that when you return back to your home country, you’ll have to get used to your native tongue again!
Creating Daily Routines
The Sell
The fun and travel will be spectacular and never-ending. Studying? What’s that? Learning a new language? A breeze (I’ve studied it for 10 years, so I’ll be fine! Right? (See above for my humiliating linguistic moments.) Food? Isn’t that just cheese and wine every night? Why would I have to take a bus to get groceries? And money? Who needs to have a local bank account, or a local SIM card, or a local ID, or … yeah, the list goes on.
The Reality
Besides all the travelling, new discoveries, eating good food, sending postcards, you will need a routine to do all the mundane but necessary things you’d do at home. Or if you don’t usually do the following, then you’ll learn to do it on your trip! Here are just some of the laundry list of mundane tasks you’ll have to do on your fantastic study abroad trip to sustain it.
Banking and Money Conversion
You’ll have to open a local bank account so you can transfer and withdraw money in the local currency without the added exchange fees. This can seem daunting as you’ll be filling out forms in the local language, but remember! Ask for help and you’ll receive it! Better to ask for help and do it right, then to pretend you know what you’re doing and pay the consequences later.
Buying a Local SIM
Go to a local phone company and get a local SIM with a local number. You’ll buy a phone package with a local number to help you save money to make local phone calls and texts.
Paying Rent
You’ll get bills every month to pay your rent. And now that you’ve set up your local bank account, paying rent and other fees will be easier.
Buying Monthly Bus Passes
You’ll be renewing your monthly bus and train pass (if you use them) and keeping an eye out for deadlines. You’ll make sure you have it on you at all times in case fare inspectors check your card.
Getting a Local ID
This one had all the international students going to one specific office to get our local IDs and declare that we were visitors on a student visa. There was paperwork galore, but the upside is I learned how to spot fake local counterfeit money while submitting my documents. It took us weeks to get our official ID, but when I received it, I felt like my study abroad journey had really begun.
Lastly, setting a good, solid routine anchors you, fortifies you, sets expectations, and makes things a bit more predictable and stable. This all helps with building a new life in a new country.
The Takeaway
The novelty will die down. And it should. The initial excitement will wane and that’s a good thing because you can’t be on a constant high. It’s pretty draining to be excited all the time. A routine sounds boring, but it’s necessary for stability. Once you have a routine, you’ll have stretches of weekly tasks to do punctuated with fun moments where you go out with friends and see new things. With a steady routine, you’ll actually look forward to travelling and returning to your dorm after a hectic trip. A good routine will make your new place feel like home.
Meeting, Making, and Keeping New Friends
The Sell
You’ll meet lots of new friends. You’ll never be lonely. You’ll be constantly engaged with lots of people all the time. You’ll always be drinking good wine or beer and eating good cheese and chocolate. All. The. Time. You’ll be constantly partying at your dorm and you’ll have a steady stream of visitors coming and going.
The Reality
It’s not necessarily false that you’ll meet lots of people, but you might not end up being friends with all of them. Meeting new people and making new friends is great, but it takes time to get to know some people. I felt like I met a lot of people studying abroad, but that doesn’t mean we hung out all the time. For me, I prioritize quality over quantity, so I tried to prioritize the few friends I made that I thought I really clicked with and focused on spending time to get to know them.
The Takeaway
You won’t be friends with everyone you meet on your travels and that’s normal! You want to prioritize the friendships that really make you feel good about being around those people. I met some great friends where we hung out every week and got to know each other well. You’ll want to have a steady schedule with them to hang out and see things. Also, the effort you put in is generally the rewards you’ll get out. I hosted a Christmas party at my dorm with some international students I also knew who weren’t going back to their home country for Christmas. We had a big potluck and shared stories and that really made my year in Geneva special. We’ve managed to stay in touch almost a decade after meeting. And one of the highlights they told me of their year abroad was the Christmas potluck we shared together!
So make sure to meet a few good friends and really hang out. You’ll build lasting memories and it’ll make your trip all that more enjoyable. Good people do make all the difference.
Rewards of Studying Abroad for a Year
The Sell
You learn a lot, meet new friends, learn to actually speak the host language, go places, see things, eat great food, and return to your home country a bit more grown up and experienced.
The Reality
Actually, it’s pretty true!
The Takeaway
You’ll learn to navigate a different city in a different language using their public transport, you’ll learn to buy monthly metro passes, pay your rent, open a bank account, then buy flights from EasyJet to travel to another city where you don’t speak the language, but also learn to take their public transport, and order food, and get around. Basically, you learn to deal with life in all its exciting and mundane aspects in another part of the world.
You’ll rack up many vivid memories and experience the joy of seeing new places and meeting the good people who inhabit this world.
You’ll return richer and satisfied in ways that only travel can bring. When someone asks you how your year abroad went, you’ll answer with the bland Ugh.. it was great! because your mind will be in such a scramble of how amazing it all was that it’ll be impossible to properly articulate all the fabulous, awesome things you’ve experienced IN A YEAR!
So, you’ll say your trip went great.
And, guess what, it will be.
