In the past few weeks as I have received my acceptance to the program in Pamplona at the Universidad Pública de Navarra. Knowing the destination of my travel adventures has made it just a little more real to me. I have always wanted to go to Spain for this semester and now it is happening. As exciting of all of this is, it has also made me realize that it is really happening. I am going not only abroad, but abroad to a country where my native language is not shared, my cultural values do not match up, and the general way of life is different. This is both exciting and scary all at once. Part of why I signed up for this experience was for this opportunity to learn and grow outside of what I know but there is still an unnerving anticipation in thinking about it.
In preparing for this experience through the Self Audit and the Cultural-Context Inventory I have found that my strengths in this process of learning and adapting to a new culture are in openness to new things and independence. Each of these qualities will help me as I study and may be useful as I work through cultural differences that I have seen based on my raking as a low index person entering a higher index country. I will have to work on openness about private affairs and other differences in that manner.
I think that the greatest difficulties that I will come across are the language barrier and the differences in pop culture references, especially as I try to make friends at my university. From what I have read online, Spain is a place where groups of people are very close and tight-knit. As an outsider and a foreigner, this may be difficult for me to get into. Details such as eating and sleeping habits will take some accommodation as well as Spaniards have a very unique system in both of these aspects. I also know that the education system in Spain is taken very seriously and students are trying very hard to make it in an economy that is not doing the greatest. With that, I will have to be conscious of the way that I approach studies and interactions with other students. Some ways to go about these difficulties in my opinion will be to make good connections within the study abroad program that the university has to offer and to make sure that I am always open to trying new things and going to new places with the people that I meet. Along with that, I will also have to be intentional in my first couple of weeks to observe the way that they do things there and to try to find a balance between trying out their ways and living my own as well.
A great part of that will be deciding what parts of my “American self” I want to portray and educate others about. For me I think that I want to educate others on my compassion and care for others as well as my openness to new people and ideas. I think that US Americans are very curious and that is one thing that I want to portray. Another one of my Americanisms that I will carry with me is my individuality. Many of the exercises that we have done show that US Americans are very much so individualists and I think that I can show the way that that is positive for me while I maybe learn about the benefits of a more group-minded society. All in all, it is my hope that I can stay as much myself while still allowing myself to have new experiences that might change my outlook.
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