Culture shock is an experience that has different effects on various people. Some are able to overcome the “culture shock” quickly while others have a harder time adjusting to the new place and may not even move past the culture shock itself. When I went came to the University of Richmond for the first time, I was so shocked to see how different the people were from Californians. People dressed in a similar fashions where they wore bright colored shirts/pants and mainly talked about fraternities/sororities. I felt very out of place and thought that I was different from most of the people on this campus. In addition, I thought that Richmond lacked the diversity that LA had so at first I had a difficult time finding my friend group. I had many thoughts about transferring back to California and it took me the whole freshman year to really enjoy going to the school.
I thought that culture shock was going to be easy to overcome and did not know that it was going to be a long process for me. I was able to find various coping mechanisms that were useful for me when I went to Australia for abroad afterwards. Moreover, I was able to grow stronger as a person and now, I do not feel as afraid of traveling to new places alone.
Comments