Re-entry from Abroad Programs – Culture Shock and What it Means

February 2, 2010 at 10:17 PM

Re-entry from Abroad Programs – Culture Shock and What it Means

 

Ruth Wyshogrod (NU ’10) and Jim Stellar

 

On January 3, I posted an e-mail that Ruth wrote from Israel about her coop abroad program experience and how deep it impacted her.  Well now she is back and the culture shock she is experiencing in return, which is not uncommon, we can take in this blog as a reflection of the operation of the otherlobe thinking, now happening in reverse as the adaptations made to being abroad (and the learning from them) require new adaptations back to what was until recently home.  This is a complex story, but to begin, I have am just going to ask Ruth to describe it for us.

 

Next week (1-25), I will have been back in the States for one month, and I still do not think that I am completely over my reverse culture shock. In a way, for me, it is not entirely “reverse” culture shock. I was born and raised in Israel, and though I had not lived there since age 11, and had some adjusting to do when I got there as well, I feel as though I am now reentering American society anew. I get by easily in the United States. My English is perfect, I love the academic world that I am currently immersed in, and I belong to a tight-knit Jewish community which understands, at least to a certain degree, the deep connection that I feel with Israel; and it is precisely this deep connection that holds me back from feeling like I will ever fully feel at home in America, even once the culture shock fades. 

 

So right now I am experiencing readjustment on two levels: the first, the typical reverse culture shock that a student feels when they have just returned from a meaningful experience abroad. I just worked for a high-profile ex-politician for six months. I lived in the heart of one of the greatest cities in the Middle East. I volunteered with several wonderful community organizations, I attended lectures at the University and museums, I made lifelong friendships and enjoyed the great nightlife. These are all adventures that any student in another country can have, and they all leave a powerful lasting impact; and then the student returns to America and realizes that not much around them has changed as much as they have. I expected this to happen, and prepared myself for it. I prepared myself to feel a little bored and “in a rut”, for lack of better words, and then prepared to counter those feelings with a positive attitude. This has worked over the past month, though it is starting to wear off. Like most students who return from co-op, I am having a hard time adjusting back to the work load in my classes, but this is something that I simply have to overcome, and I have no doubt that I will. I am more concerned about the boredom, the lack of excitement – and this, I believe, is something unique to students who go abroad for co-op. This, of course, I will also overcome, because I am not actually bored. I am very busy with classes, extracurricular activities, and the small remainder of free time I have is devoted to reconnecting with friends. The main difference that I notice seems to be that, in Israel, I went to sleep every night feeling fully content with the activities of my day, feeling that they were truly meaningful. In Boston I often feel as though I am working hard for that feeling to come in the future, but do not necessarily feel it now. To me this is a cultural difference between the U.S and Israel.


Thanks.  Now please comment on what you think it means that you were raised in Israel for the first 11 years of your life.  Did that unusual familiarity help make the transition to Israel particularly deep for you?

 

As I wrote above, the transition “back” into Israeli life was not so quick, and so easy. Sure, it was significantly easier for me to adjust to life in Tel Aviv than it was for my American counterparts. I spoke the language fluently and I had full familiarity with and understanding of the culture. But the issues that I struggled with in my adjustment were deeper. I had to cope with the fact that everyone my age in Israel was serving in the army and I, an Israel, was not. Everyone I met and interacted with was older than me for this reason, too. I had to cope with the fact that even though I was Israeli and had all these lovely childhood memories of holidays with my family, my parents and siblings were not there to celebrate Hanukkah with me, because they do not actually live there anymore. Even though I have visited Israel every summer since I moved to the States, all my memories were still in time from 6th grade. It was a rude awakening to be in Israel long enough to realize that, of course, Israel too has changed, and everything is not as it was in 6th grade. This was a good and a bad realization. At times it made my adjustment more difficult, especially in terms of relationships with friends and family, but at times it was great, because ultimately I loved being a young student living in Tel Aviv, and was able to embrace that. Once the adjustment period was over, my connection with Israeli was reestablished in a way stronger than I could have ever expected. I am now certain that I want to live there after college, because I am certain that it is my home and I understand the implications of that fact for my overall happiness. 

 

Ruthie and I agree that the adjustment to living aboard is made on two levels, one of which is the automatic, instinctive, gut-level thinking that we have been calling “otherlobe thinking” in this blog.  It is not under conscious control, but makes itself felt as Dawn Anderson and I wrote some time ago about getting out of one’s comfort zone. 

 

Jim is reminded of a story of one of his teachers in graduate school in psychology explaining that the rules of classical conditioning (think Pavlov’s dogs) are the rules of emotional conditioning. He also remembers one of his teachers saying how he and a colleague had conditioned themselves to salivate by pairing a tone occurrence with a squirt in the mouth of something sour to study how long the salivation would continue after the pairing was discontinued (this is called extinction).  What the teacher discovered was that it took a long time for extinction, including their entire spring vacation week. Despite trying hard consciously not to salivate, they did and missed the vacation. 

 

So, what we think happened here is that Ruthie conditioned herself to Israel, got used to it. That phenomenon was almost certainly made stronger by her long early history living in Israel and supported by its attraction for her.  Just like the example of the salivary conditioning, but on a much more personally significant level, these circuits need to re-adjust.  The conscious mind is also learning as it verbalizes the story it is experiencing from the emotional circuits.  Then, we suggest, that verbal experience feeds back to the otherlobe where the conclusion comes from – that perhaps Israel, not the US, is really the right home.  Such a summary judgment is really what got this blog started with the Descartes Error neurology book by Damasio.  The dance between the two types of thinking is critical and plays into all forms of experiential education where students are learning by doing, traveling, interacting with their own past interests, etc.  Here is where higher education could be more focused in leveraging the interaction in abroad programs by having students mix with others upon return, give presentations to others who may yet want to go, and generally think with academic professionals as well as with friends about what the `experience means for career or even home location.

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What happens when you graduate in December and look for experiences to help shape your career thinking?
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