Study abroad hosts participant meet-and-greet
Study abroad opportunities have a lot to offer, although they may lack Pop-Tarts, as noted at a casual gathering of study abroad returnees Tuesday evening.
Seven recently returned travelers met at a roundtable discussion to exchange stories and eat foreign food.
The students’ experiences included attending international schools and interning and volunteering in Spain, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa and Wales.
Fourth-year broadcast journalism student Amit Kumar went abroad for two terms — once in Florence, Italy, and once in Sevilla, Spain.
“When I returned back from studying abroad, my reverse culture shock was harder than when I arrived [in the foreign countries],” Kumar said. “You meet so many different communities abroad, so I wanted to do something where returnees could get together and feel that same community again.”
Kumar, who is now an intern for Academic Programs International (API), a partner of USC’s Study Abroad Office, approached Study Abroad graduate assistant Leslie Pitman to put on the event.
“We have done returning programming in the past, and we were lucky to get some funding from API for this one thanks to Amit,” Pitman said.
The round-table discussion elicited unique responses from every returnee.
Music was the most popular subject of discussion.
“Last year ‘Gangnam Style’ was the most popular song in South Korea. When I got back to America, it was just beginning to become popular here; it followed me home like ‘The Grudge,’” said sophomore biochemistry and molecular biology student William Clinton Welsh.
Language barriers were another popular topic. One student said he had to be careful about how specific words were pronounced, as a mispronuniciation of the word for “bread” in Portuguese could refer to male genitalia.
Fourth-year broadcast journalism student Dominique Johnson studied in Cape Town, South Africa, and had the opportunity to study a South African “click language,” in which people make clicking sounds with their tongues to communicate.
“There are 11 different official languages in South Africa, and outside of Cape Town, only 25 percent of people speak English,” Johnson said.
“Before I went to Sevilla, I hadn’t spoken Spanish in four years,” Kumar said. “When I returned I was fluent, and I still am today.”
The meet-and-greet took place in the newly renovated dining room at Maxcy College’s International House.
Kumar said the event didn’t have as big of a turn out as he expected, but with the intimate environment, he hoped everyone got something out of it.