The ‘culture shock’ many scholarship students face abroad

Many Saudis, scholarship students in particular, seem to take the cultural shock very hard. It is like they were never prepared to deal with it before traveling to study abroad. They usually react in one of three ways to it: either learning to cope and reaping the benefits of being exposed to a new culture, or rejecting the new environment and submitting to feelings of alienation, loneliness and self imposed isolation, or boiled over by a new found "freedom", they become totally over zealous, uncontrollable and end up in difficult and questionable moral and legal situations.

The second category, alienation and loneliness, seems to be the most chosen path taken by many Saudi students. A lot of them go there and come back without being able to form any friendships outside their comfort zone, they discover nothing about the city, let alone the State they had lived in for several years, and their excursions mostly constitute trips between the university, the supermarket, and home. Some, are even proud of their isolation. a lady I know who spent years in the States to acquire her master and Ph.D. came back saying, rather self-righteously, that she did not interact with any men other than her professors, "Outside the university, my husband did all the talking," she said with a proud smile.

So what is culture shock anyway? Anthropologist Kalervo Oberg coined the term in 1954, who, interestingly, considered "culture shock" as a form of mental illnesses; an occupational pathology for persons living in a new environment, he said.

The term has been widely used thereafter to describe a set of symptoms like anxiety, disorientation, and dismay caused by transitioning to a new and unfamiliar environment.

The culture shock goes through many phases; most of researchers agree that it usually starts by fascination. It is when everything is new and shiny and exciting; new people, new places, and new food. It is the phase of observation and discovery. That's why it is usually called the honeymoon phase.

Then, there is the conflict or negotiation phase when differences start to be noticed. It is when a person starts to compare how the people around him behave, how the food tastes, and how social and moral values differ than his own. Language barriers and local customs become a burden. The attitude toward the new environment, either positive or negative, starts to mold in this stage.

Next comes the adjustment phase. A person reaches this phase either with a positive attitude, which means he or she start to become comfortable toward their new surroundings. Or it is reached with a negative attitude in the form of emotional anxiety and rejection. At the end of this phase a person decides how is he or she would carry on throughout the new experience. It is usually called the coping or mastery phase. And mostly, it is one of the three scenarios we described earlier.

There is no doubt that the way we deal with cultural shocks plays a vital factor in determining how successful is a study or work endeavor abroad. We need to be ready, mentally and emotionally prepared for the new experience. And there are many tactics that should help us overcome cultural shock abroad.

Email: saudipulse@arabnews.com

Source: ARAB NEWS