These last few weeks of the semester are always a surreal point in the life of a college student when we’re expected to be more productive than ever while battling more tiredness than ever. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and forget about anything on the horizon beyond finishing finals. That’s why I’ve only half realized the extent to which I’m going to be thrust out of my comfort zone next semester.
I’ll be spending the semester in South Korea, on an exchange program. Right now I’ve only truly considered the exciting aspects of the trip. After seeing friends post all their fondest memories from their trips to Seoul on Facebook, it’s safe to say that my expectations are fairly high. However, it’s necessary to remember that these kinds of experiences come with their own challenges. There is a model for the way that students tend to respond to study abroad trips: at first everything is new and amazing, and there are no problems in sight. Then they realize that communicating in the foreign environment is more difficult than they assumed and they experience some feelings of isolation and frustration. Finally, they assimilate into the culture and become comfortable with the situation.
I have a feeling that a few lessons I’ve learned in this class will prove helpful when I’m abroad. I can’t jump from A to Z and expect to immediately feel at home. I’ll have to accept that the key is to focus on one step at a time. Mastering different elements of the culture and bringing them all together will help me become well adjusted. Aspects such the language, social norms, political values, etc will come with time. Ironically enough, when I was in 4th grade my elementary school hosted a group of Korean students to come study at our school for a few months and one boy stayed in my house. He had a tough time adjusting, mostly because he was a 4th grader living in a completely foreign place, but it’s also true that the general idea of the A-Z model could have given him some perspective and patience with the transition.
The ideas presented in Interdisciplinarity will prove to be helpful with the process of assimilation. Learning how to live in a new culture is an interdisciplinary process because there are multiple skill sets needed to succeed. For example, learning the language relies heavily on rote memorization and mechanical thought, while connecting to locals uses interpersonal communication, while learning to read train maps in a new place might require some geographic skills. I’m excited to transfer the interdisciplinary skills I’ve learned in this class into my time abroad, hopefully then being able to write something about my trip worth reading.