The challenge of being a Foreigner

Usually when you visit a country its for a week or two. There is not enough time to register the specific differences between your home country and the country your visiting. When you study abroad, you stay long after the tourists and visitors. You notice what is different. You analyze how people behave and speak. Even stranger, you start to analyze how you behave in comparison to the people of the host country. For me, this analysis began in the very first week. Most other students in my program had some time to prepare for the culture shock of living in France because they lived in dorms or apartments with other Americans. I on the other hand, had no time to prepare. Upon arrival at my home stay, my host family made it abundantly clear that they would not be speaking English with me. The first two weeks were horrific. I made a mistake every time I spoke in French to my family. I felt like I was making no progress and I would never speak French as fluently as others. Rather than beating myself up, I decided to pick myself up and better prepare myself for speaking French with my family. It was clear that my three a week French class for an hour a day would not be sufficient. So, before my host family dinner, three times a week, I would practice how to speak about things that happened during the day, what happened the last weekend, and what I would do the upcoming weekend. It was slow progress but it worked. After a month, I had developed a basic understanding of French and was absorbing new French words and phrases much faster than before. After three months, I had developed an accent and a fluent style of speaking conversational French. All of the mistakes, embarrassment, and hard work totally paid off. By the end of the program, I started to feel more comfortable speaking French than I did speaking English (which is probably why I suffered more reverse culture shock than actual culture shock). Since my semester abroad in France, my life has significantly changed. I am now a double major in French an International Business, applying to Bibliotheques sans Frontiers this summer, and will be applying to a two year program, post grad, to teach English to children in France. The path of my professional career has completely shifted because of my study abroad experience and I could not be happier.