Ten months ago, almost to the day, I got on a plane bound for Paris, France. I was spending the semester there in hopes of improving my French and acquiring a Givenchy wardrobe like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. I went abroad because I had to and because I knew it would be good for me. Perverse as I am, my expectations going in were as follows: I would understand nothing; no one would understand me; I would hate my host family; my host family would be equally as fond of me. On my more optimistic days, I saw myself sitting alone in some smoky caf? as rain splashed on the gray of the street and upon the Seine, smoking unfiltered cigarettes before letting them listlessly drop from my fingers into the dregs of my espresso, then remembering that people stopped doing that in the ‘50s and feeling foolish.
At the time, I figured that no one else going abroad felt this way. This was wrong. We were all terrified, and I can only assume that the many juniors now slogging through the interminable paperwork that Office of International Programs assigns are terrified also. Having come to this realization I feel like I should volunteer to speak at one of those study abroad fairs or something, but since I personally distrusted all of the people I heard speak?I was pretty sure they were in the pay of OIP and therefore unreliable?I decided against it.
What I can do, however, is share a column I wrote when I was abroad. I never submitted it for publication; in fact, I never finished it. I think I gave up on it because after working on it for a few weeks, I stopped feeling so damn incompetent and the piece didn’t feel authentic anymore. Here it is as it stood last March, when I abandoned it:
- * *
I am thoroughly convinced that the Office of International Programs lies to you, and not in the blatant, outright fashion that you could call them on. No, theirs is a lie more of omission than commission, and I am here to set to record straight: They will tell you that studying abroad is a major time for personal growth. They will let you fill your head with visions of exploring twisting Italian streets, bartering in Turkish markets with your sense of savoir-faire and a few key hand gestures and drinking sangria until dawn.
All of these things, strictly speaking, are true. What they do not mention is that you will be exploring the twisting Italian streets because you’re lost on your way to the mythical unbelievably-cheap-but-authentic-and-equipped-with-clean-sheets hostel you read about in Let’s Go Italy, that your hand gestures will be misinterpreted with as much savoir-faire as Chevy Chase in National Lampoon and that you will be drinking sangria until dawn because you never found the hostel listed in Let’s Go Spain and you preferred the bar to the streets of Seville.
In short, what they don’t tell you is that any time of major personal growth can be characterized by a feeling best described as “being three years old.” Being a stranger in a foreign country, whether it be for a year or four months, is eerily akin to being a toddler in your own home: You have lots to say but you don’t know how to express it, you don’t really know how to behave in public, and from time to time you will be overtaken by the inexplicable but powerful desire to clutch your blankie and suck your thumb.
An issue here is clearly the language barrier, a problem experienced mainly by people studying abroad in non-Anglophone countries, although I have heard that people studying abroad in foreign nations such as England have some adjustment to do, too. (“What the hell are kippers and why am I always being offered them? And if public schools are actually private than why are they called public? How is this language even remotely related to English?”) Despite rigorous preparation by the Georgetown University French Department, I am not a native-like speaker of French. I’m pretty damn decent, but the different between “pretty damn decent” and “native speaker” is roughly the difference between “five-paragraph response paper” and “graduate thesis.”
Other things to remember: You will find that people tend to use a patronizing voice when they address you, the same one they use to address a beloved pet, for example, or a particularly slow toddler. People will tell jokes that fly right over your head. In much the same way the knock-knock jokes you told your siblings when you were in nursery school amused no one but you, things you find hilariously funny will be met with dead silence. (Try asking someone in Ecuador, for example, ?Te gustan mariscos? They won’t laugh.)
Other things that will make you feel infantile, too. For example, those of us drawing on bank accounts in the States often have to enlist our parents in the maintenance and replenishment of such accounts, which involves giving them access to our finances, which involves the uncomfortable realization that Mom and Dad can see exactly how much you’re spending on “education,” by which I mean beer.
- * *
In looking back, I feel like this unfinished piece is the most valuable thing I have to say to anyone going abroad (well, second most valuable, the first most valuable thing is, “Remember that flicking people off is offensive no matter where you are.”) Feeling incompetent is a reality, and while it comes and goes, you really never get over it. Incompetence can be very freeing, however. It’s what makes study abroad so nerve-wracking and so memorable. Not the sort of thing I’d say in front of a study-abroad panel, but truth nonetheless. And when it feels more oppressive than freeing, which it’ll do, well, that’s when the education money comes in.
