Photo by: Jessie Hull

With a week and a half of the winter 2008 quarter behind them, many juniors on the University of Denver campus are all asking themselves the same question: Can I go back to studying in a different country?

A student who has recently returned from studying abroad is junior Stefanie Bednar. She spent her fall quarter in Aix-en-Provence, France.

During her time abroad, Bednar lived with a host family because the program she was in required all of the students to do so.

Like many other students, Bednar is feeling a little blue about her departure from France and from leaving her host family.

“I miss the slow lifestyle and I miss the open fresh markets,” Bednar said. “I really miss coming home to a cozy place where my host mom was always thrilled to have me come back.”

Junior Jessie Hull expressed similar feelings as Bednar about her experience in another country, as well as her homecoming.

“I had an amazing time. I miss the people there, they are absolutely amazing,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about things like hitchhiking or walking home alone at one or two in the morning because the people are so trusting.”

Hull spent her time abroad in Dunebin, New Zealand, where she studied at the University of Otago. While abroad, Hull decided to live in a flat, which was basically a four-bedroom house.

“People are really trusting there. I had a roommate that I lived with who had lived there for years and never carried a key with her because the door never had to be locked,” Hull said about her place and the trustworthy people that she lived near.

There can obviously be many cultural differences between the United States and other countries. Many times these are expressed through language, translations and slang words.

Bednar and Hull brought back a few humorous miscommunication stories when they returned to the states.

“I had a guy friend who had an embarrassing moment with the French language” Bednar recalled. “‘Je suis exité’ does not mean ‘I am excited’ in French but instead it means ‘I am sexually aroused.'”

She then explained that at dinner with her host family and his host family, her friend had accidentally said that his host mom was sexually aroused instead of excited.

Hull did not encounter many translation problems in New Zealand but she did however pick up on some of their local slang words.

“We went on a lot of hiking trips while I was there. They call hiking ‘tramping’, though,” Hull explained. “So I was on the phone with my mom one night and told her that I did a good ‘tramp’ that day. She was like ‘what did you do?'”

Now that study abroad students have returned, a common idea heard on campus is the notion of return-culture shock, which is the belief that after being abroad for months at a time, it takes time to get acclimated to the culture that they originally left behind.

“It definitely happens. I felt it,” Bednar said of this concept. “In France, if your ten minutes late for class, they understand that you’re tired and needed to get coffee. Here, I have all these old expectations, like being to class on time.”

After being abroad for months, Bednar and Hull have come back a little older and a little wiser and more than willing to give a few words of advice to those looking at studying abroad in the future.

“Find out what matters to you,” Bednar offers to those seeking advice. “Just don’t be afraid to immerse yourself in another language.”

“Don’t hold onto what you left behind. Enjoy every minute of it,” Hull advises. “Oh, and be prepared to be unprepared.”