“Congratulations! You have been accepted to study in Paris for the 1995-1996 academic year.” I read the letter with a sense of delight and trepidation. As a French major, studying abroad would give me the chance to eat, sleep and breathe the land and culture that I knew only through my textbooks. I immediately pictured myself strolling along the Champs Elysees, or sipping coffee at a famous café while brushing up on my 19th century French literature. But going abroad would also mean leaving behind all the comforts of home and living in a foreign environment; a daunting prospectus for anyone, but especially for a shy, twenty-year-old, college sophomore. I had chosen to go to college only twenty miles from my hometown because I did not feel that I was ready for the experience of being on my own. My friends and family were close by, and I could always turn to them when I needed support. Who would provide that support and comfort while I was in Paris? In the end, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, and I departed for Paris in the fall of my junior year.
Once the newness of living overseas had worn off, I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was completely on my own. There was no cafeteria doling out pre-cooked food on a pre-paid account; I had to buy groceries with my own money and learn to cook my own food. There was no RA or hall director to supervise the residents; presumably, such supervision was unnecessary in an apartment complex setting. But these minor inconveniences paled in comparison to the loneliness I suddenly felt. My dormmates and family, who had been nearby for my first two years of college, were suddenly 8,000 miles, eight time zones and an entire continent away. At random times throughout the day, I would find myself wondering what the gang back at school was doing at that very moment; perhaps they were holding a late night study session, or listening to a lecture on European history. Some days were worse than others. There were days when my homesickness became so bad that I wanted to pack up and catch the next flight back to San Francisco; but that proverbial “little voice” inside my head kept reminding me that if I left mid-year, I would never forgive myself. The nine months ended much too quickly, and I hated to leave France almost as much as I had initially hated to leave San Francisco. I returned home with red wine stained teeth and a slight accent, but the real, long-term effects of my experience had yet to sink in.
I may not have known it as a twenty year old, but in those nine months, I was learning much more than just the essentials of French; I was building, honing or acquiring valuable skills that would serve me later in my life. My first experience with a French library stands out as a major learning experience. I had to write a term paper for my literature class, and wanted to include in my analysis past criticisms of the work, a common practice in American academia, but not as well known in France. Back at my home campus, such resources were readily available, and, as I had done so many times in the past, I consulted a reference librarian about where to begin my search. Apparently, reference librarians in France do not work in the same manner as their American counterparts; and the librarian, a particularly disagreeable individual, kept insisting that she did not understand my French, could not figure out what I was asking her to do and therefore, could not help me. The incident was a first hand experience in how differences in cultural perceptions can throw a potential monkey wrench into a carefully planned project. After a minor panic attack, I decided to revise my project and approach it not from the American academic standard, but from that which was in use in France. When I returned to the library a few days later and presented my revised research plan to the librarian, she was more than helpful, and rather pleased to see that I had not remained set in my ways, but rather, had adapted to meet the expectations of the other party. What began as a severe case of culture shock ended in a lesson on adaptation and intercultural relations, skills that I now use regularly in my work and personal life. I received a “13” on my project, the French equivalent of an “A,” and was the only student who had adopted the French model for writing a critical paper.
Lifetime Lessons
By Catherine Miskow, IES Paris, 1995-96
Some of the most important things learned while studying abroad did not come out of the classroom.
While intercultural and international experience are valuable products of studying abroad, there is another, more personal benefit that often gets buried beneath that of intercultural experience, but is no less important. There is an immense amount of personal and emotional growth experienced during this period, not quite unlike that experienced by a child between the ages of twelve and eighteen months. And while the amount of growth is entirely dependent upon the individual, the underlying experience is the same whether one studies in Paris or Panama, Tokyo or Tegucigalpa. I departed the United States as a sheltered, insecure twenty-year-old, and returned from France as a self-assured, independent, young woman. The transformation I experienced during this period was the same one that my roommates had experienced their freshman year when they ventured out from home for the first time in their lives.
That year abroad broke down not only cultural and linguistic barriers, but personal ones as well. And although I have returned to Paris countless times since that year, my experience is never quite the same as it was during those nine months, and I can never really figure out why. Perhaps it’s because that period was a time of innocence, discovery and profound personal growth, a stage of life that, like the toddler years, can never be repeated throughout the rest of one’s life. But just like the toddler years, the things learned and the events experienced during that period will stay with that person forever.
