Three Tips for Better Connecting to Your Study Abroad Experience

Intentional moments of reflection help you actively engage with your thoughts and emotions related to different experiences. While studying abroad and living a multitude of new experiences, it can be particularly helpful to slow down and think about all that you are experiencing. 

On GoOverseas, a current EdOdyssey Peru team member, Patty Valencia, wrote of a powerful moment that she witnessed during an EdOdyssey immersion trip in Peru: 

“After dinner, Peter - the President and Global Founder of EdOdyssey - led the group’s nightly reflection and I was moved by the students’ words. They were talking about how great and life changing their whole experience of being in Peru had been and how great [it] was to see people being so happy with what they had, and supportive of each other even when they hadn’t much to offer.”

Before, during, and after a study abroad experience, taking time to reflect on your values, beliefs, experiences, goals, and passions will help you fully engage with your experience and your inner emotions. 

PREPARING FOR THE UNKNOWN

As you prepare to study abroad, pause and think about your emotions, expectations, and fears, because doing so will help you set goals for the experience and guide what you look to get out of your time abroad. The day before I left to study abroad in Lima, Peru, I remember feeling completely unprepared and nervous about the experience that was to come. Acknowledging your worries and fears is okay and completely normal before a new experience. 

Before you head off to study abroad, consider some of these questions: 

• What are some of your passions?

• What are you most excited about? Most worried about? 

• Why did you choose to do this experience? 

My ice skating coach used to say before competitions that if you are nervous, that just means that you care. If you feel nerves before you study abroad, that is 100% normal and likely means that you care about this new experience and are anxiously anticipating the unknown that waits ahead. Accept that nervousness is part of the experience and remember that there are people who are there to support you throughout your journey abroad. 

REFLECTING THROUGHOUT YOUR ABROAD EXPERIENCE

The three main reasons why reflections are an integral part of EdOdyssey programs are to build trust and communication, to unpack our observations, and embrace emotions, are all also relevant while studying abroad. As you experience a new culture, face adversity, and adapt to a new environment, pausing to reflect on all you have gone through will help you both learn and grow. 

Handwriting a blog at a neighborhood park in Lima

Some popular manners of processing and reflecting on experiences are journaling, blogging, talking with classmates, program leaders, or other supportive relationships, and silent reflection. These forms of reflection can be done daily or weekly, or sporadically throughout the experience. 

When asked about the value of reflecting while abroad, Hui Li, who studied abroad in Italy and 2020 summer intern with EdOdyssey,  shares that: 

“Blogging, journaling, or doing any kind of recording/reflection on something like study abroad puts an abstract concept like time, experience, and growth into a concrete medium that you can use to put the things you learn into perspective. You have something in the physical realm that you can look back on like a timeline and use as a means to track your progress. By having a concrete record created over time, you can better assess how much you've grown since your first days abroad.” 

Taking in one of the Seven Wonders of the World with incredible friends!

THINKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

Coming home from being abroad can be a difficult experience. You may experience reverse culture shock after being immersed in a different culture for a long period of time. You have likely said goodbye to many friends or host family members who you do not know when you will see again. Additionally, you have had numerous unique experiences that others around you have not had. Reflection will help you process why returning home may have left you with a flurry of emotions. 

As you look toward your next adventure after studying abroad, you can think about how you’ll use your study abroad experience and takeaways to create the future that you want for yourself. Think about all the experiences you had abroad and take time to reflect on them, talk about them, and process them. 

Some questions that helped me when I returned from study abroad are the following:  

• What new passions do I have now? 

• What are some things that I learned while abroad?

• What are some experiences when I felt most happy? Most sad or uncomfortable? 

• What are some moments when I was most proud of myself?

These questions are great because you can reflect not only on your experiences, but on how they affected you and how you can work to create more proud and passion-fueled moments in the future. 

For some more ideas about post-study abroad reflection, check out Amanda Lowrey’s blog called Six Helpful Questions to Reflect on Your Study Abroad Experience!

Six Helpful Questions to Reflect On Your Experience Abroad

Studying overseas can bring about a whirlwind of emotions not only prior to departure and during your stay, but also afterward when returning home. No matter the amount of time you’ve been abroad, it’s important to reflect back on your experiences and appreciate the life-changing moments you’ve had while traveling. 

Returning home from studying abroad is a period when students reconnect with loved ones and best friends back home, while acclimating to changes in your lifestyle and routine, such as your school, workplace, living situation, etc. Reverse culture shock comes with processing the emotions that surface when travelers re-enter their home country and learning how to fit back into their home culture, which can be difficult and stressful. Sometimes, the process of re-adapting to home can be more arduous than when you first adjusted to your host culture! This process is unique for everyone, and it’s advised to be mindful of it upon return. 

The person you are now since returning from studying abroad is not the same person who left a handful of months ago. You’ve had so many incredible moments packed into a short span of time, that you might not have had much downtime to really think about everything. Carving out time to unpack your experience and reflect about all you did and learned is important.

Below are six helpful questions to help get you started on your own reflection:

1. What did you discover about yourself?

Personal change and growth is crucial to reflect upon when adapting to your old home. You most likely experienced challenges, differing values or worldviews, not to mention being immersed in a brand-new culture, differing academics, having newfound independence, and so much more. Personally, you may have matured and gained confidence. 

Change and growth also occurs in new environments, such as foreign language skills, problem-solving skills, new subjects, and efficiencies used in daily life within your host culture. Regardless, studying abroad undoubtedly changed you in numerous ways! 

2. How can you extend these skills into a professional setting? 

Did you know that skills learned while abroad can be transferable into the workplace? Use your international experience to your advantage, because those skills have real world implications!

While overseas, you developed a plethora of skills that are cross-cultural, such as establishing rapport quickly, adaptability, critical thinking, and patience. Reflect upon your experience and skillset to better understand how studying abroad has improved your abilities in and out of the classroom. 

3. Consider the people you met along your journey. What did you take away from them? 

An additional way to reminisce is understanding how others you met made a lasting impact on your life. Think about teachable moments, adventures, connections, strong bonds and friendships, or even how your homestay has become family. 

Appreciation for those who’ve supported and celebrated you should not be overlooked. Certain people come into our lives at certain points, and they’ve made up a major part of your study abroad journey as well. With appreciation comes gratitude, you might consider thanking those at home and those abroad for being a part of your journey, too. 

4. What surprised you the most about your experience? 

What’s something you didn’t expect to learn from your time abroad? Life is full of expectations, and studying abroad is no exception to that rule. Aside from learning the local way of life and a second language, what other opportunities have you taken in during your time away? 

Your greatest lessons can also teach those around you about your host culture and study abroad in general. What habits have you adopted from your host country? After living in another culture for a while, some of those habits might also return home with you. Did you adopt certain mannerisms, preferences, or behaviors abroad? 

5. What did you learn from a challenging situation you faced? 

How did particular instances challenge who you were, and how did you overcome them? Be proud of who you have become because of it. Maybe you’ve increased your sensitivity to cultural differences, and have a deeper appreciation of global diversity. As you’ve dealt with the challenges of living abroad and understanding a new culture, you’ve successfully embraced the challenge of conquering a language barrier, being away from those familiar to you, and staying motivated during your time abroad.

6. How can you best describe your experience to others who haven't lived it? 

Navigating a response when someone asks, “How was your study abroad program?” can be tough. How might you include moments of joy, anxiety, adventures, challenges, and friendships all in one answer? Embrace your truth and feel free to share any specific or general experiences as you see fit. 

Your answer could simply be, “Study abroad was great!” and while this is probably true, oftentimes the listener wants to hear stories that really bring your experiences to life. If someone is asking you about your time abroad, they’re looking for interesting answers too! Being honest about how things were overseas can be important as well, therefore express the beauty you saw, places you visited, and your biggest takeaways from your journey. In short, live through the adventures you’ve experienced through the stories that you recount and relive to others.

Returning home is a crucial component to your overall study abroad experience. Things will feel different, and it can be challenging having to readjust back to your routine. After you’ve returned home, you might begin to miss the people you’ve met, local cuisine, and tons of little things you loved about your host country.

The most important thing you can do for yourself when dealing with re-entry is simply giving yourself an adequate amount of time to readjust. Dedicate real time to reflect on how you can continue to take on new challenges as a global citizen, reflect on how much you’ve changed, and see how you can invest your time to continue learning and growing. 

For additional advice on holding onto experiences once you’ve returned home, check out “Five Ways How I Keep My Study Abroad Experience Alive” by EdOdyssey Alum, Jake Leary!  

How to Customize Your Immersion Program With EdOdyssey

Congrats, you’re interested in organizing a custom immersion program to have your students abroad! You might have a good understanding of the type of custom program that you’re looking into or perhaps you’re just starting to consider opportunities abroad. We customize programs for faculty-led programs and high school immersion programs in Peru, China, Italy, Spain or Canada.

In both cases, we want to understand your learning objectives, your goals, and your institutional needs to create the best possible custom program for you and your students.

As we start the conversation with you about your program preferences, we encourage you to ask yourself these three important questions:

What is Your Area of Interest?

It is important to determine which subject you think your students would most benefit from and which type of custom program best complements your goals and learning objectives. Our programs can focus on a wide range of content areas related to cultural immersion and discovery, service, language learning, and history - to name a few.

The custom nature of our programs show students firsthand how their area of study can be applicable in their everyday life. These programs add a new context to the study materials and allow the student to cultivate a personal connection to what they are learning.

Most importantly, we handle all the logistics! From the pre-departure to the return to the United States, your students can focus on the academic side of the experience. We want to make sure that you’re able to invest your time and energy into making sure that students meet their goals, and we are available to provide international medical insurance and 24/7 support while you’re with us.

What Do You Want Your Students to Gain?

Every choice made in the custom program creation process is intentional. We want to give your students as many opportunities as possible to visit a site, experience a class, or witness a cultural event that reinforces their subjects of interest, aligns with their academic goals, and encourages reflection.

Our job as EdOdyssey educators centers around making sure that both teachers and students have a fun and safe experience. We design programs that center around culturally and academically enriching activities so all of us can view every experience from a comparative lens.

During the program, we constantly assess each student’s state of mind as we go through our program. How is everyone feeling? Does anyone need to rest? We like to take a proactive approach because we understand that every student has different needs.

We aim to do informal reflections during the program, and a large group reflection at the end. We’ve found that students not only remember key highlights, but they have a lasting emotional connection to them, too.

If you have specific learning objectives that you need to follow as a part of a curriculum, you can communicate those goals ahead of time. We can design the custom program for you to meet the academic focus for you and your students.

How Will You Incorporate Those Experiences Abroad and Lessons For your students?

When the program is over and your students are back in a familiar environment, they will get back into their respective routines. However, we want them to remember the lessons from experiences from their EdOdyssey program. In the past, we’ve had reunions with teachers and students shortly after our programs together to see how they’ve stayed connected with their experience and how it has impacted them.

We’ve noticed that the group reflections have created a safe space in which students feel comfortable speaking their minds, even after the programs. For the students, it is reassuring to see that their fellow students and teachers might have made a similar connection or observation.

These reflections will highlight the change in perspective and personal development of your students. With access to these student reflections, you can revisit important topics and pivotal experiences. Constant informal assessments and group conversations are a great way to incorporate the program’s takeaways in your classroom.

Do you want to read more about our custom programs? Definitely check out our Four Major Benefits of Customizable Programs!

Three Main Reasons Why We Do Group Reflections

During our high school immersion programs, the EdOdyssey educators likes to focus on the positive energy and challenges of every day. Each day presents itself with its own meaning and our job as students and educators is to explore that significance.

When we travel, we have fun experiences in new places with fellow classmates and teachers, we come away with life lessons think. In each trip, we have a lot of different personalities and a wide range of perspectives so we like to hear and learn from our students and teachers at the end of each day that we’re together in a group.

Here are three main reasons why we do on group reflections:

1. Build Trust & Communication

In small and big groups, we want to learn about all our teachers and students. Although our teachers and classmates go to school together, we encourage everyone to participate and speak because we’re outside of a school setting and in a new culture.

A big first step of breaking into a new culture comes with communication. The point of travel is for all of us to learn together, and we can’t learn if we don’t discuss with each other what we’re feeling and seeing each day to understand why we feel that way.

If we don’t share our laughter, your surprises and your awe, we might miss the beauty of our respective environments. Along those same lines, we can embrace and respect these observations and moments together because it’s how we build trust and confidence in each other.

2. Unpack Our Observations

All of us, teachers and students, come together during these group reflections to hear and understand the emotion that came to you during the day because we’re picking up on the same surroundings but we’re perceiving them differently.

Our ideas, and our thoughts, go in different directions when we travel together and we need to embrace honesty if we’re going to make the most of the experience. Sometimes we feel a certain way and we don’t know why, which is why we like to talk about what we did and what we saw during the day.

3. Embrace Emotions

We know that each student faces their own challenges and fears before and during each trip so it’s best for all of us to take these head on together. For some students, we know that stepping on a plane can create a lot of stress while others might get more nervous around new foods.

We want to help our students manage and understand the emotion that comes from travel because academic education. In any day a trip, you can swing between moments that are fun, scary, exciting, unnerving, confusing, and funny within seconds and minutes of each other.

All of us manage these challenges the best when we take them on together. Even though you feel like you’re the only one who feels shocked or confused during your trip, you might be standing next to a friend going through it too but we all show and express our feelings differently.

When we go abroad, our senses get overloaded with everything that’s different and we want you to know that you’re never alone! Your fellow classmates, your teachers and EdOdyssey staff are with you every step of the way, and if you want to learn more about how we help each other, please check out Five Tips For Diving Deep Into A New Culture!

3 Beautiful Realizations From Unexpected Travel Changes

You know that unsettling feeling when you look around and you feel your stomach drop as you realize something doesn’t feel right. You start to look around and you feel out of place and you get frustrated. Your mind races and you get overwhelmed because you come to a realization that your trip isn’t going 100% according to plan.

Now what do you do about it in that moment? At EdOdyssey, we want that you embrace that uncomfortable moment and explore it with us.

As both travelers and educators, we plan out the details of our trips abroad as best as possible, but unexpected changes happen along the way. The weather changes or there’s an expected delay. There’s nothing that anyone can do in those moments except be patient. No one can foresee these moments, but all of us can adjust our mindset to take in these beautiful and teachable instances if we have the right mindset going into our trips.

When the train makes us wait, or the weather slows us down, all we can do is manage our reaction. No traveler wants to leave a country with bad memories and we don’t want anyone on our trips to not leave satisfied either so we need to see the splendor in everything!

Therefore, we want to share three of our beautiful realizations that come from changes.

The Beauty of Cultural Differences

In general, we can have lofty expectations and standards from back home that we unjustly communicate onto other cultures. When we travel, we have an idea that buildings and places will look different but at some point all of us struggle with how aspects of other cultures feel different. For example, at restaurants in Europe, the service tends to be slower and less individualized than in the United States.

All of us feel this slower pace, and we can either feel frustrated or take a moment of introspection to see the bigger picture. We’re all getting more time to spend with friends in an amazing place about to eat some delicious food. The drinks might take a couple more minutes, but take a step back, and ask yourself if you’ll remember that as being the moment that ruined your trip.

In those moments, we have to take a second to understand that our frustration comes from feeling something different and we have to ask why it feels different. At EdOdyssey, we understand these frustrations and these differences and we want you to understand these feelings because ultimately it helps us understand...  

The Beauty of Reflection

When you’re at home, you have your own individual routines and your own structure that gives you a sense of comfort that disappears quickly when traveling. When you travel abroad with us, we do our best to customize the best trip for you and prepare for everything, but even still there might be unexpected changes.

Ultimately, we can’t control long lines and unexpected waits, but we can manage our attitudes and how we roll these changes as individuals and as a group.

In those unexpected moments, we ask that you take a second to reflect on the beauty of the moment. You’re with your friends, you’re trying new foods and seeing unbelievable things. In a few weeks and moments from now, do you think that you’ll remember a little rain?

If I learned anything during my time abroad, I understood how to let go of my expectations and embrace mistakes and confusion.

During your time with us, we plan our trips as air tight as possible but sometimes life happens and reality gets in the way. There’s an unexpected delay or a last second modification. Take a second, look around, and embrace the moment.

Talk with your classmates and friends about what you’ve done or what you’re about to do!

The Beauty of Help

We’ve all had these incredible moments in our lives when we find ourselves lost and we don’t know what to do. We’re with a group one second, we look away or get distracted, and then we can’t find them.

As little kids, teenagers or grown adults, we’ve all lost track of our friends and family at some point. As humans, we share this truth and we have to stay optimistic and understand that people will be there to help you.

We are there to help and we hope that you’ll come along and join the ride with us so we can share the beautiful experience of traveling abroad together!

Four Major Benefits Of Customizable Programs

Plan, Prep and Go Abroad With EdOdyssey

Wouldn’t you like to go abroad with other teachers and students without the stress of handling the logistics of the whole journey yourself? Would you like to be able lay the foundation for a unique, fun program but let travel experts and fellow educators work out the logistics work for you?

We’re here to help!

Our customizable group programs abroad allow educators and their administrations to give us the tools to develop enriching, educationally-focused programs. As former teachers with years of classroom experience, our team knows how to involve school leaders from the beginning in develop meaningful, international programs for students. Our team helps define the wide and specific scopes of learning objectives for the program so your program can incorporate your content area(s) and theme(s) are reflected in the itinerary.

Below are our four major reasons why students and teachers should customizing a program abroad!

1. Flexible Planning

From the start, we’re able to create an itinerary that fits the mission of your program within your timeframe. For staters, we ask teachers and administration about the length of their desired program, specific/tentative dates, learning objectives and destination of travel for us to lay a base travel itinerary to start incorporating activities and later work out the logistics. Our extensive knowledge of Peru, China, Spain, and Italy help us plan and prepare individualized programs for schools with academic requirements in mind.

Our programs are designed similarly to a curriculum that allows students to learn across a wide range of activities. In the past, we’ve included cultural experiences involving local communities through homestays and volunteer service days. We also incorporate student-driven, educator-guided experiences abroad that include famous points of interest and scavenger hunts in them to add that special element of experiential learning.

We know how to adjust to your academic needs because we know that you want the best suited activities for the mission of your program, and we know that you’re trying to reach a wide range of students with their various strengths!

2. Differentiated Student Activities

In the classroom, we know that great teachers adjust their instruction to meet the needs of their students, and we want our programs to cater to the students as well. We make sure to differentiate our student activities to match with the scope and mission of the program.

After every program, we receive great feedback from our group programs and we’re luckily able to use it the next year since the high majority of our schools repeat with us. In over our years of providing custom study abroad programs, we’ve travelled with students from all around the US and we’ve all collectively travelled 932,994 miles and counting!

We’ve had hundreds of students go through our past programs and more than 13,450 hours in the classroom with all of our groups combined internationally over the years! Not to mention, we’ve also collaborated with schools from foreign countries and hosted them in Massachusetts!

3. Affordability - Your Program, Your Inclusions

Our core program includes the essentials such as your housing, your transportation, your flights, most of your meals, 24/7 staff, your pre-departure support, and your travel/medical insurance during the duration of your trip with us.

Some fun additions that groups have enjoyed with past groups have been language classes, museum visits, cooking classes, volunteer/service and so much more. We try to include as many culturally-enriching activities to give you the best idea of what we provide you with during your trip!

You’ll want to bring some spending money for souvenirs and snacks! Otherwise, we try to include as much as possible with our school trips!

If you have something that you would like us to consider during your trip, we want to hear it because ultimately we want what is best for our groups. We go through and create a step-by-step guide for each group that communicates a clear roadmap of how we are preparing you for your trip abroad.

4. Increasing Student Participation & Satisfaction

Based on our past travel experiences, we know how to create a holistic, cultural experience abroad that makes you realize how much you’ve learned in such a short amount of time. We understand the beauty of teachable moments and we coach the students as they go on their journey.

For example, at the end of each day, we lead a group reflection to help students share, process and understand the takeaways from each day’s activities. Through the duration of the trip, students receive cultural coaching from us because we know that it’s important for them to have social context from experts who know the nuances and pitfalls of experiencing a new culture.

As we’ve collaborated with a variety of schools from around the world, we understand that each school and all students have their respective needs, budgets and objectives. Our ultimate goal is that we want to make it work for you because we believe that travel changes people and people change the world .

Are you ready to take that first step and start planning your next trip? Not sure about your financial plan for the trip yet?

For more information about our financing opportunities, check out money matters page so we can help help your students get on their way!

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