Culture Shock

Experiencing new cultures, and obtaining a better understanding of your own culture, can result in some of the most positive, life-altering experiences students have while studying overseas. You will experience differences in manners, beliefs, customs, laws, language, art, religion, values, concept of self, family organization, social organization, government, behaviour, etc. All of these elements combine to form your host country's rich and unique culture.

While the introduction to new and foreign cultures greatly benefits students, it can also be overwhelming. The new cultural elements a student encounters overseas may be so different that they seem "shocking" in comparison to cultural norms they are used to at home. As Bruce La Brack writes in his article "The Missing Linkage: The Process of Integrating Orientation and Re-entry":

"Just as you can't really describe the taste of a hot fudge sundae to someone who has never experienced one, it is difficult to actually convey just how disorienting entering another culture can be to a student without any cross-cultural experience."

Rhinesmith's Ten Stages of Adjustment

Source: Returning Home, Canadian Bureau for International Education, 1984, p. 7.

Culture shock and its effects can occur in a number of stages. However, culture shock is not an exact step-by-step process; every student doesn't experience culture shock the same way or at the same time. The following 10 steps of cultural adjustment outlined by Steven Rhinesmith show how culture shock can be like a roller coaster ride of emotions:

1. Initial Anxiety
2. Initial Elation
3. Initial Culture Shock
4. Superficial Adjustment
5. Depression-Frustration
6. Acceptance of Host Culture
7. Return Anxiety
8. Return Elation
9. Re-entry Shock
10. Reintegration

Riding the roller coaster of culture shock, a student actually follows a natural pattern of hitting peaks and valleys. The high points of excitement and interest are succeeded by lower points of depression, disorientation, or frustration. Each student will experience these ups and downs in different degrees of intensity and for different lengths of time. The process is necessary in order to make the transition from one culture to another; it helps a student or traveller to balance out and adjust.

Prior to going overseas, students may be excited about new adventures to come. A student arrives in the host country and perhaps begins to develop increasing independence as he/she starts to experience the local culture or another country's culture. At first, a student's expectations may be too high. He or she may see things almost as a tourist would during the first few weeks in a new country.

A student may be heavily comparing and contrasting his/her home culture with the culture overseas. It is common for students to focus on what they see as weaknesses in foreign cultures. Students tend to point out what a foreign culture lacks; this often leads to feelings of frustration over what is "missing" or what can't be obtained overseas in the same ways it can be at home. Students may be challenged on a regular basis by different ways of living overseas (banking, eating, relationships, etc.). Negative feelings and frustrations may reach a level where you begin to recognize you are going through "culture shock".

Stage 6: Acceptance of a new culture

As a student gets used to the host country's ways, things that seemed like a "crisis" may now simply be seen as different ways of doing things. Most students gradually adjust their lifestyles to be balanced with a country's own cultural norms. The cultural traits that once annoyed or bothered a student generally come to be accepted as normal. Students usually begin to understand and appreciate the cultural differences between Australia and the host country. However, if significant problems arise, a student may briefly return to the "frustration" stage of culture shock. As a student begins to adapt more and more, he/she may have a new set of friends, may be travelling more, and may even be dreaming in another language. The "other way" may now become the "normal" way of living.

Stages 7 through 10: Leaving a new culture behind

As a student becomes integrated to the ways of the host country's culture, the more difficult it may be to re-adapt to Australia upon return home. Australia just won't look the same way it did before leaving to study overseas; a student may see home with new eyes and may also be more critical of Australian cultural traditions once thought to be "normal". This is called reverse culture shock. Fear of experiencing reverse culture shock should not deter students from trying to integrate as fully as possible while overseas. No matter how integrated a student becomes while overseas, he or she will probably still be "shocked" by differences noted at home after so much time spent overseas and the other countries to which you will be travelling. However, over time, a student will learn to re-adapt and reintegrate into his or her home culture.