The (Post Study Abroad, Academic) Struggle Is Real

NYU Local
NYU Local
Published in
3 min readDec 4, 2014

--

By Sami Emory

madrid

Over the years, Local has reported the good, the bad, and the ugly of readjusting to life and school after studying abroad. The range of opinion expressed by our reporters mirrors the polar reactions from students returning from NYU’s portal campuses to Washington Square Park: from PSAD (Post-Study Abroad Depression) to enthusiastically reinforced patriotism.

After spending the spring semester in Madrid, I experienced both extremes. One moment, I would be wandering aimlessly down the pee-perfumed sidewalks of lower Broadway, longing for jamón serrano (Spanish for wonderfully fattening, greasy, ethereal pig meat) and dazzling Dalí-esque Madrid skies and the next, worshipping the ever underrated 8 am cart coffee and basking in the balmy breeze drifting off the moonlit Hudson.

Nonetheless, the cold, hard, quotidian transitions that I and, from what I have gathered, my fellow post-abroad peers consistently held in common were academic rather than cultural. “Coming back from Madrid, the most difficult part was readjusting to a rigorous scholastic environment,” says Izzy Hogenkamp, a CAS Junior. “In returning to New York, I found that Madrid had undone a lot of my well-established my study habits — most importantly prioritizing and time management — and now I’m working on getting them back.”

Similar to Izzy, I too felt overwhelmed and underprepared for the work that this fall threw unceremoniously in my lap. I found myself unable to slurp down a couple of quick, one euro glasses of cava before art history or spend the weekend skinny dipping in Valencia. Instead, I was forced to spend my time chugging four dollar lattés on rainy weeknights, hauled up in Bobst’s unwelcoming stacks.

And yet, from a countering perspective, many abroad site veterans feel nostalgic for the unique academic structure of NYU’s abroad campuses. Jess Herrera, who is now studying at NYU’s Washington D.C. campus said, “It was really weird transitioning from being abroad to being back in America in general. Studying ‘away’ at the D.C. campus this semester has made me appreciate the academic standards at Madrid. I think I learned a lot more last semester than I have this fall.”

Like Jess, Junior Will Schwartz praises the one-of-a-kind opportunities of abroad academics: “As someone who’s learning a foreign language,” says Will, who is being modest and is actually proficient in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, and English, “nothing I have ever learned in a classroom can compare to living in a country where you’re immersed in the language, especially in the cultural colloquialisms.”

I must admit, there were times last semester that I was less-than-focused on my schooling. However, I acquired an entirely new skill set, just as valuable to me as a repertoire of academic accomplishments. I learn how to travel light and travel cheaply. I learned how to be street smart in cities where I didn’t know a jot of the language and how to prioritize and time-manage sightseeing. And, I should add, between all the weekend trips and weeknight adventures, I was taught by Spanish professors who were passionate about their fields of study and their country.

In the end, however, we all agree upon one thing: study abroad offers an entirely different system of learning and the transition is hard. There is nothing like encountering a Greco in his hometown or partying with the locals while rapping away in their primary language, be it Spanish, Italian, Japanese, or German. And returning to the wildly different academic structure of our home campus, whether it be a relief or a challenge, is bound to leave you as shell-shocked as your first few weeks in a foreign country.

[Image via]

--

--