- Reflect on the Culture Shock video and your own experiences and expectations of culture shock
The Cultural Shock video was interesting. I feel that for a video that's quite old, I think it's been 5+ years, it still has a lot of meaningful and relevant culture shock reflections.
It touched upon a lot of academic differences. With how papers are written, expectations, and styles of teaching. I found this to be very true as well. When I studied in Morocco, class was less structured and more "free". In a sense, my relationships with professors were a lot more intimate and there were no unprecedented expectations of being a top notch student.
There's also a lot of talk about understanding the English lingo/street talk. I know for most of my international friends, they have a hard time understanding American sarcasm and I think this is real culture shock to go through. One can learn so much about grammar and vocabulary yet not understand a conversation happening because there's so much cultural reference. I didn't so much experience this in Morocco with Arabic but I'm sure that it's just because I wasn't there long enough to really immerse myself in that kind of way.
I think something else that the video didn't touch upon much is the culture shock of returning home from abroad. Just a summer can change your perspective so much and hit you closely once you come back home. Things you get accustomed to while abroad are usually no longer relevant in your home country or valued the same way. I found this hard when I was back in the US from Morocco.
Comments