When Abroad, Phone Home!
Reality Hits
It鈥檚 that time of the semester when there is increasing popularity of memes speaking to many students abroad who are slowly realizing that they still have academic responsibilities and are bracing themselves for the impending doom of neglecting them. The academics may be different from back home, but assignments, essays and exams still do exist on this magical semester abroad. First of all, don鈥檛 fret. Everything will be fine. Take a breath and relax because this isn鈥檛 the end of the world. Second of all, call home. Talking to friends and family back home really helps when you feel as if you鈥檙e stuck in some sort of rut or feel hopeless.
My Dilemma
If you鈥檙e like me and are studying abroad (or planning to) in the Southern Hemisphere, you had over 2 months of a winter break and are thoroughly confused at the idea of getting back into that academic habit. It鈥檚 basically like throwing your inner academic clock out of whack by placing summer vacation during the winter holidays. I, in addition to most of the other study abroad students I know, were all in the same boat of uncertainty that we could manage the tasks ahead of us. Our conversations at mealtimes were flooded with comments like 鈥淚 wish I could just call my mom and tell her to come pick me up, that always fixed everything.鈥 This got me thinking that maybe making it a habit of calling family and talking to friends back home could cheer me up a bit. I couldn鈥檛 have imagined how beneficial this was for my mental health and stress levels to just catch up, complain, laugh, maybe even cry a little (homesickness happens to the best of us) and talk things out with people that made me feel the comfort of everything being normal.
How would this help?
Calling home regularly helped change my point of view from 鈥渨ow I鈥檓 studying聽abroad so this semester is not going to be anything like back at home鈥 to 鈥渨ow I鈥檓聽studying abroad and this is amazing, but I still have some responsibilities like I do聽back home.鈥 Also, the academics while abroad don鈥檛 have to be annoying or聽get in the way of having fun and exploring. While talking to family back home,聽my mom persuaded me to try and approach my classes in a different way. Instead of聽it being time consuming or boring, try to use it as an excuse to meet more people in聽this new place as well as network with professors or researchers that could end up聽giving you valuable advice on career choices. So rather than suffering through聽studying or working on my own in my room or the library, I reached out and made聽study groups with people in my classes. If I have a question about something, I鈥檒l go to my professors office hours and talk to them face-to-face to get a more聽personalized experience, which I鈥檓 more accustomed to at my small college back聽home as opposed to this new 50,000 student university.聽In the end, being abroad means a whole new world of independence and freedom聽that I have never been exposed to before, but by no means does this mean that I聽can鈥檛 reach out to friends and family back home for advice or a sense of normalcy.聽What began with a semi-existential crisis resulted in improvement to both academic聽and emotional aspects of my study abroad experience.
Soncy K. | Biology Major | Scripps College | in Australia聽| Spring 2018 | IFSA International Correspondent