Returning Home

On each of our programs abroad, AEA faculty and staff lead students through a re-entry orientation during the final days of the program. This orientation helps students prepare for their return to the U.S. and includes topics such as: explaining your experience abroad, incorporating study abroad into your resume, remaining engaged with friends from abroad, sharing your experiences with your home school, etc. This helps provide students with some of the tools to aid in their transition back home, without feeling as though their connection to their host country has ended.

Returning from abroad may be overwhelming at first for some participants. Students come back from living overseas with new perspectives on American life and culture. While this perspective will aid them for the rest of their lives, it can be quite an adjustment at first.

Students

We encourage students to keep a journal before, during and after study abroad to continually reflect on their experiences. We also encourage students to continue taking classes in the foreign language spoken abroad, if the language is available at your home college or university. Students also usually make lasting friendships while abroad with other American students and members of the host country, such as their homestay families. Maintaining contact with these friends from abroad will greatly help during the transition back home. Many students also find that connecting with international students on campus, or seeking out friends who have also been abroad is a great way to continue to share and reflect on having studied abroad.

Family and Friends

One of the challenges during the transitional period of returning home may include feelings of isolation, and a difficulty sharing or articulating experiences from abroad. Friends and family are encouraged to ask students detailed questions about their time overseas. Specific questions enable students to reflect upon the richness of their educational experience while abroad; they also allow both students and their families to better understand the cultures and histories of other parts of the world. The standard question, “How was Japan?” often leaves a student overwhelmed and unable to provide a detailed answer. Sitting down to look at photos from abroad, and hearing the stories that accompany them may be one of the best ways to connect with your son or daughter (or friend) upon return. The more that they feel you understand about their experiences abroad and the willingness to listen, the easier the adjustment back home will be.