Three friends, smiling, partly of nerves and partly of excitement. They are in an airport. Hyde Park. The sun is setting; it’s peaceful. A vibrant garden. A colorful row of houses. A night out. A delicious meal. A church. A museum. A famous painting. A club. A train station. A hand, waving goodbye. An airport.
Scenes from a semester in London flash through Christina Mazziotta’s laptop screen as she re-watches her favorite moments. She has just spent the last four months studying abroad, and on the return home, desperately clings to this 14-minute long montage.
“How was abroad?” everybody asks.
When she watches her video of the semester, she sees her happiness, hardships and incredible growth. She has returned home a different person. She encountered new experiences, cultures and perspectives. She learned. She grew. She soaked up every second. Studying abroad changed her life. There is so much to tell.
“It was great,” she says.
And the conversation is over.
At Elon University, studying abroad is almost a given. The University is ranked number one in the country for study abroad, with 83% of students having participated in a global study abroad program at least once.
“I really suffered upon my reentry,” Mazziotta said. “I think that it’s really difficult to encapsulate a whole semester when someone asks you how your abroad experience was.”
Students are put through pre-departure classes and required to attend preparation forums. They have meetings with their advisors and information sessions with their parents. At Elon, spending the semester before you leave preparing to study abroad is one of the largest components in actually going abroad.
But then you return, and it’s back to normal life. There are no return forums or concluding classes. And for many Elon students like Mazziotta, this is the hardest part of the entire experience.
“I really suffered upon my reentry,” Mazziotta said. “I think that it’s really difficult to encapsulate a whole semester when someone asks you how your abroad experience was.”
Since returning, “It was great,” has been Mazziota’s – and many other student’s – consistent response when asked about study abroad. And while seemingly efficient, the short response can be detrimental to the student’s mental health when it comes to processing their abroad experiences and adjusting to life back home.
“Not everyone has a difficult transition, but I know a lot of people do, and they don’t talk about it. That’s what’s sad,” Mazziotta said. “Everyone thinks you come back, and it’s like nothing ever happened or you haven’t changed.”
Sociologist Joan Ferrante describes in her book Sociology: A Global Perspective, that “reentry shock” is caused by the transforming effect of experiencing another culture. Students who study abroad are pushed into a completely new environment, forcing them to adapt and grow. In most cases, this is an incredibly changing experience – one that those at home were not there to witness.
“Yes, abroad was the best four months of my life, but I think when that comes out of my mouth, that’s the only thing people hear,” Mazziotta said. “But it was also the most challenging. You learn so much about yourself, and it’s really hard to describe that to somebody who hasn’t studied abroad. That’s a really difficult disconnect.”
“Nobody really wanted to talk about it anymore. And I still feel like I had a lot to say”
Upon returning home, it seems more and more Elon students are pushing their abroad experience to the back of their brain. They are unsure how to both process studying abroad and explain it to loved ones, all while assimilating back to regular life. And at a school like Elon, where going abroad is more popular than not, students can start to feel like their personal experience was insignificant if it is grouped under the umbrella of thousands of other students’ experiences.
“I felt like the first few weeks back at school, everybody was talking about abroad and their experiences,” she said. “But then it was like, nobody really wanted to talk about it anymore. And I felt like I still had a lot to say.”
Even between close groups of friends who had also gone abroad to various places, processing this shift can cause a feeling of distance if students don’t know how to talk about it. Elon senior Kaitlyn Brozek studied abroad in Dublin, Ireland during her fall semester of junior year. Like Mazziotta, she as well as most of her friends had a very difficult re-entry.
According to Brozek, she and her friends went through a clear honeymoon stage of returning home and seeing each other again. It was when they settled into the routine of being on campus at Elon again that they struggled.
“It was spring semester after coming home. Every single one of my 12 best friends, we didn’t know how to talk to each other,” Brozek said. “We had no communication. I’ve never felt so distant from them.”
Brozek said she spent most of her days alone in her room, as did her friends. They didn’t talk about it, because they didn’t know how, and nobody was asking any questions. Most of them weren’t even sure why they were feeling the way they were.
“There were a lot of times I found myself saying, ‘I love Elon. Why don’t I feel like it?’” Brozek said. “I’m a tour guide. I’m an Elon advocate. Every day I felt like ‘there’s no reason I should be sad right now.’ But I was.”
Both Mazziotta and Brozek felt alone and out of place on their return home. And nobody seemed to be talking about it. In fact, according to Steven Braye, Elon Professor of the capstone course The Impact of Study Abroad, Mazziotta and Brozek are only two of many Elon students who experience a very similar feeling upon returning.
“Coming back is very difficult,” Braye said. “Much more difficult than people realize. This sounds negative but it really isn’t; but Elon’s weakest area right now given the many (abroad) preparation classes, is the return.”
Mazziotta is currently a student in Braye’s class this fall, and said his class was the first time she realized she was not alone in her struggles back on campus.
“It connected me with a lot of other people and made me realize how common the things I dealt with are,” she said. “It feels like a safe space where I can literally talk about anything. I didn’t realize how little I had reflected on my abroad experience until this course.”
While reverse culture shock is not unique to Elon, it is the lack of an open conversation about it that is. Many students, including Mazziotta and Brozek, look forward to the return home while they are still abroad. Most students don’t think returning home is going to be difficult – they have no reason to think that. There is nobody preparing them for the challenges they may face when they return back to campus, and very little recognition of it when it is happening.
“I wish it was just an open conversation, and was acknowledged by the school,” Mazziotta said. “Because I know a lot of people suffered internally and didn’t talk about it. Just now, a year later, I’m starting to talk about it and process it because of this class.”
While it may not be realistic, to require every study abroad student to take a class like this, Mazziotta believes the general resources should be provided by the school to help students assimilate back to campus life. Many schools that have study abroad programs, have at the very least, a short page on their website that explains what challenges students can expect on the return home.
Elon does not. That is where the disconnect takes place. There is simply no acknowledgment of the returning process. And as a school that prides itself on its high study abroad numbers, students like Mazziotta and Brozek believe that’s a huge downfall.
“That’s the thing with Elon,” Brozek said. “So many people go abroad, that we make this joke about how everyone talks about it too much, so everyone feels like they need to play it cool and not talk about it. But like, you did go abroad. Let’s talk about it.”
It is classes like Braye’s capstone course that can facilitate this open conversation students desperately need when returning home. The class has been routinely offered in the spring semester of each year, but many students don’t know about it.
“It’s been so helpful,” Mazziotta said. “I just wish I had known about the class sooner, I don’t think it’s advertised well enough. A course like that should at least be optional, or even mandatory on the return.”
Braye hopes to build the awareness of his class, and offer more sections in the future. In the next school year, an additional section will be offered in the fall for the first time. The discussion that this class fosters is an opportunity for students to reflect and grow from what they have learned while being away. That, according to Mazziotta, Brozek, and Braye, is what study abroad is all about.
“If they leave understanding abroad better, they leave understanding themselves better.”
“When you come back, a lot of people think it’s only about being abroad. But I hope what Christina has learned, and what others in the class have learned, is that it’s about identity,” Braye said. “If they leave understanding abroad better, they leave understanding themselves better.”
Scenes from a semester in London flash through Christina Mazziotta’s laptop screen as she re-watches her favorite moments. It’s been a year now since she’s been back. And she still watches her 14-minute long montage, “regularly.”
Watching it now, it’s a reminder of how happy she was abroad. But it’s also a reminder of how much she was challenged. How much she grew. How much she learned. It’s a reminder of a time when she was still learning who she was, and it’s a reminder that she’s still learning who she is.
A tear falls from her eye and onto her laptop. Abroad changed her life. She’s ready to talk about it. All she needs is someone to listen.