Students who summer far away redefine culture shock

Hawking peanuts or singing verses from the Koran, dozens of children surrounded Carly Stewart and begged for money from the 21-year-old this summer as she walked around Dakar, Senegal's capital.

The children appeared hungry and weary, an image that the Boston University student finds hard to forget as she starts her senior year of college tomorrow.

Since she returned to Boston in July from the West African country, Stewart said, she has sometimes felt overwhelmed by the differences between her own country and the one she left behind. She spent six weeks studying in Senegal, a largely Muslim country where she needed to use French to make herself understood.

Stewart, like other college students who spend their summers abroad, is experiencing reverse culture shock. It is an issue colleges take more seriously than in the past, as a growing number of college students go abroad to non traditional sites outside of Western Europe, such as China, Cuba, and South Africa, according to the Institute of International Education, which tracks study abroad.

Back home hanging out with friends, returning students sometimes feel estranged.

``They want to have a good time and sometimes it does occur to you, `What am I doing when there are people out there suffering so much?' " Stewart said. ``Whenever I see food wasted now, it breaks your heart."

To help returning students adjust, college officials offer counseling and host barbecues for students to share their experiences. BU runs a language link program and connects returning students with international students from those countries.

``Twenty years ago, it was kind of left to the student to deal with the readjustment and figure out for themselves what it meant in terms of their life," said Joseph Finkhouse , a director who works with foreign universities at Boston University International Programs. ``Now, realizing our obligation to students doesn't end with the study abroad program . . . we want to help them make it part of their life."

Next month , the fifth annual Metro Boston Students Study Abroad Reentry Conference will be held at Lesley University in Cambridge, where students can reflect on their experiences and share tips on making the transition back to college in the United States.

``The more they're able to find their own routines and exist without hassle in that new culture, then it's more difficult for them to come back home, where everybody is the same," said Dawn Anderson , director of the Office of International Study Programs at Northeastern University. ``It's difficult to find people to talk to about what they just experienced because the change is so dramatic and so great, and you really can't articulate it to anyone."

Stewart said her weeks spent in a distinctly different culture affected even her view of daily rituals such as using a cellphone and watching strangers hurriedly brush past her without a word.

``In Senegal, no matter who you see, you say hello to," she said. ``Coming back to America, where people just pass each other on the sidewalk all the time and don't even acknowledge each other, it's kind of a cold feeling."

Ariel Gold , 20, a BU junior, spent this summer researching cooperative coffee farms in Peru and Guatemala. When she studied abroad last summer in Peru, Gold spent hours discussing the social and political marginalization of farmers with local Peruvians who had started their own non governmental organizations.

Returning to her job at the Red Sox team store last summer was difficult, she said, because following the Sox seemed so petty compared with her experiences in Peru.

``It was very strange to go right back into the swing of things, how quickly I started doing my normal routines again, but it was like I was a different person," she said.

This summer, she is easing herself into the transition by integrating her international experiences into her life in America. She has enrolled in a monthlong class that will certify her to teach in Guatemala next summer.

Mike Norman , a 2005 graduate of Northeastern University, studied in Costa Rica for five months when he was a junior and grew accustomed to a more laid-back lifestyle that did not place so much emphasis on the need to make money.

When he returned to Boston, he said, he had trouble adjusting to a high-pressure, aggressive sales job, and knew he wanted to go abroad after graduation. Now, he works in San Jose, Costa Rica, as a consultant researching corporate social responsibility for an agency.

Norman, 24, recommends that students who have trouble readjusting seek out similar ethnic communities in Boston to stay connected to the foreign culture they miss.