And Now for Something Completely Different: A Guest Article for The Exchange Student

This is a guest post for The Exchange Student, a blog by Jory Black. Click below to see his useful blog about affordable world travel for students!

https://thexchangestudent.wordpress.com
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Is being a foreign exchange student right for you?

Doctors T. Furikawa and T. Shibayama from the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Education say that it's a complicated business (Furikawa & Shibayama,1993). Many factors help or hinder prospective exchange students adapt, thrive, and learn in their new countries! Furikawa and Shibayama have learned through the intensive study of 188 Japanese teenagers, aged 17 to 19 years old, placed in host families across the globe for an entire year. This select group had a head start above their classmates-- they passed written exams for English and sociocultural knowledge of their countries with flying colors. From the passing group, oral exams provided by program interviewers made sure that the mix of the selected students was balanced and varied.

Once these knowledgeable students were selected, they were distributed in North America (67%), South America (6%), Asia (3%), and Europe (24%) (Furikawa & Shibayama,1993). Before the trip and at during midterms, the students took several academic surveys measuring their personalities, health, family relationships, and friendships. The students were slightly more extroverted than the statics Furikawa and Shibayama found for the base population of Japanese children, but they were otherwise completely normal.

It was discovered that the final group of students were more likely to report extreme maladjustment if they had a relatively high initial neuroticism score, relatively less maternal care before the age of sixteen, less intimacy and friendship availability, and less intimacy satisfaction at home. Going abroad is not for everyone, but you can help your travels with a few simple tips!

-Be in a healthy mental place before you travel! Sort out your anxieties and plans pre-trip, make sure to keep in touch with any of your usual counselors, and put yourself into a frame of mind to accept adventure and surprises.

-Keep in touch with your family! It's hard to leave them all behind, so phone calls and skyping will help your mood immensely. It's okay if you don't call your parents every day, but try to touch base with them at least once a week. A few short minutes of sharing the highlights of your journey will help frame your experiences as an adventure, and keep the positive parts of your day fresh in your mind. Also, familiar voices and faces can only help. Homesickness is temporary, and this will tide you over.

-If you're usually shy, do your best to make new acquaintances and connections! It's hard, but having friendly faces in town will make your transition a lot smoother. If language barriers are an issue, try English clubs at your local university. They'll be interested in learning about your home, and you'll definitely have a lot to say about the differences to people who understand you. Other student hobby clubs break language boundaries and are fantastic friend-making machines for any country. Try the sport and art clubs first for a quick, fun experience without words. From personal experience as an introvert, I can guarantee that you'll make new friends in no time if you act interested and smile. College campuses are engineered around making large groups of intelligent young people network, so take advantage of that!

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Resources:

Dr. Furukawa, T. & Shibayama, T. (1993). Predicting maladjustment of       
     exchange students in different cultures: a prospective study. Social   
     Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 28, 142-146. 
     doi: 10.1007/BF00801745