1.1 - If you are Going Abroad Soon...
| If You Are Going Abroad Soon... |
Anticipation and
Expectation Exercise A
PLEASE READ THIS PAGE AND DO THE FOLLOWING SELF-EVALUATION EXERCISE ON ANTICIPATION AND EXPECTATIONS BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER!
If you are entering this website because you are soon to go abroad on a study abroad program, congratulations on your decision to travel and learn internationally! Part of what this resource tries to do is to show how one’s personal background and cultural values will effect, in part, how you will perceive others who think and behave differently and how they may perceive you. But in addition, we hope that by going through some self-reflective exercises at various stages of your journey, you can gain additional insights into the kinds of personal changes a study abroad program can bring about. This is particularly true in terms of one’s perceptions about the self and others, both before and after a period of intense cross-cultural exposure.
| What we are asking you to do is to write your own personal responses to the questions below. Be as honest as you can be. Your responses should reflect how you feel right now, before going abroad. Then either print them out and put them in a place you can retrieve them at a later time or save them on a computer. We will refer to them in later sections dealing with preparing to come home and readjusting after reentry, where you will be asked to compare your prior answers about your expectations about studying abroad with those evaluations you will generate four months to a year (or longer) in the future. |
We believe taking this exercise seriously will eventually assist you to better gauge how the process of overseas adaptation has played out for you personally. It will also facilitate your understanding about how expectations, realistic and unrealistic, play a role in how well you adapt and how you feel about it in retrospect. So take a few minutes and fill out the following questions and put your answers in a safe place. We promise it will be worth your effort as you work through similar pre-reentry and return exercises at the appropriate time.
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