Moving abroad for either study or placement for a year can be a daunting experience.
Dealing with potential language barriers and unfamiliar culture, attitudes, way of life or outlooks are some of the biggest challenges associated with moving to a new country.
Although it’s normal to adjust or even get used to these changes, one of the less mentioned aspects of a Year Abroad experience, however, is the concept of reverse culture shock upon returning home after your time abroad.
Feeling disoriented, out of place or like you don’t belong in your home country when you return can be an incredibly jarring experience and can be hard to explain to your friends and family back home.
You may feel different, or home may feel alien as well. Re-adjusting to being home can be incredibly challenging, especially if you have returned from a culture with large differences from your own.
You might feel very differently than you did when you left, you may have a totally new outlook, perspective and life experiences from your time away.
Re-adjusting to life in your home country can be difficult after you’ve become used to a different way of life in your host country.
Old habits or routines may feel strange to go back to, such as the speed of life , or attitudes towards work-life balance.
Re-adjusting to old social norms, etiquette and levels of formality may feel strange, not having your host country’s food may feel strange, or even not having consistently good weather if you’re returning to the UK.
My personal experience
I spent my full Year Abroad in Valencia, Spain. I loved every second of my time there, and honestly, I did not feel ready to come home and leave my life there behind once I had finished my exams.
Reverse culture shock definitely hit me hard for the first few weeks after I flew home, and I missed so many aspects of my life abroad.
The worst parts for me personally were losing my social circle that I had built for myself, as well as just missing everything about Valencia, the food, the weather, the architecture, the beaches and the relaxed life, and I was expecting this when I came home.
However, I found that a lot of the time it was the smaller things that I did not anticipate that I noticed the most when I returned home.
Things as small as going back to earlier mealtimes felt off, or going back to a culture where alcohol was heavily engrained in socialising instead of a more casual environment honestly made me feel out of place.
How to get the support you need?
Support is available if you’re feeling reverse culture shock whether you’re spending your time abroad here in Newcastle or if you’re returning home to the UK.
The University has testimonies from other Year Abroad students, it’s good to read about their experiences as well to see what methods others have used to deal with reverse culture shock.
The UK Council for International Student Affairs also gives advice and strategies for dealing with reverse culture shock if you are struggling with it.
For any students returning to the UK from their Year Abroad, the University has the Academic Skills Kit full of resources to support your return to academic study in the UK.
Talking with your course mates who’ve been through the same experiences as you with returning to the UK after spending time abroad is always a good thing, especially if you’re feeling reverse culture shock, or isolated after returning home.
Student Wellbeing is available to all Newcastle University students. They can give you any support you may need, from counselling and advice, to just having someone to listen.
Personal advice
After returning from my year abroad I experienced culture shock for a couple of months before I started to feel back to normal again.
To stop myself from feeling as much reverse culture shock when I returned from Spain, I kept small pieces of my life and routines from abroad going.
Keeping to Spanish mealtimes, making recipes that I’d learned, and trying to keep a more relaxed work-life balance helped me to feel more normal when I first returned home.
Completely changing social circles after a year was one of the hardest parts about returning home.
Staying in contact with friends and connections that you’ve made while abroad makes the experience of not being able to see that group of people regularly slightly better.
Keep in mind that after you return from your year abroad, a lot of course mates and people you know from university may have graduated and left Newcastle, staying in contact is good even if you can’t see these friends and connections consistently anymore.
Staying connected is one of the best ways to feel less isolated after you’ve returned to the UK.
In terms of advice for dealing with reverse culture shock when you do return, try to enjoy the things that you missed the most while you were away.
Seeing old friends, spending time with family that you haven’t seen for a long time or going back to places that were special to me all helped me feel slightly better about returning to life in my home country – and avoid just focusing on the things that I missed about my host country.
Year Abroad is an incredible experience, and one that I will recommend to literally anyone who has the opportunity to experience it, but side-effects, such as reverse culture shock when you come home for example are a part of the experience.
It's normal to always have a special connection to the places that you spent your time abroad in, and it’s totally normal to feel out of place for a while when you return home, but you will adjust, and you will feel back to normal after returning home with time.
By Jameson, a fourth-year Modern Languages student