The Value of Living Abroad

According to The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the last 2020, there were around 281 million international migrants. It is around 3.6% of the world population. The United Nations said it has increased over the past five decades. This high number is under the various reasons, and study abroad is actually one of the reason. Study abroad is not the same as travelling. When people choose to live, work and study abroad there is always a struggle. But instead of over-thinking the difficulties, to become a global citizen, we need to learn how to survive, the benefits as well as the existence of being an "international human".

Some of us agree to the statement of "the longer we live abroad the more opportunities we will engage" during the adaptation process. Generally, study abroad give us the opportunity to experience the global classroom, it is way more effective rather than learning things up on the social media or reading the books. Enter the new culture, fit in the education system and explore the values while studying abroad will gain out skills in literacy and communication. It becomes the most popular reason to reflect the being global citizen goals.

In the other hand, the challenges of becoming international student sometimes intervene the adaptation process. Fortunately, in this globalization era everything is covered by internet even though we usually find the differences between expectation and reality. Therefore, this article will gather the ideas and tips to survive and deal the culture shock. Hopefully, it will be useful for everyone of you in the future.

Because culture is actually the fundamental part of communication, so learning or understanding the new culture is the best way to fit in the lifestyle. We can start by trying the popular theory written by Paige (2001) on learning how to learn the culture;

1. Learning about the self as a cultural being.

It sounds too philosophical, but the more we know about self the more we appreciate about the others. Culture is a part of human being, it is created by the history to represent the values in the future. Start we something easy, such as visiting the museum, reading the history or having a discussion with the local.

source: instagram.com/rkive (Art Basel, 2022)

source: instagram.com/bs_etika (Rotterdam Library, 2016)

2. Learning about the communication, behaviour and identity.

This second part may become the favourite, because learning these specific value can be done directly in person or through the media. One of the easiest media is watching the film, show, festival and many other events. For example, we can learn about the social-economy behaviour of South Korean by watching Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰). There are also a lot of show to represent their identity such as tourism and art.

source: netflix.com (Itaewon Class)

These two are basically the most fundamental aspect of learning culture. Moreover, the phenomena and language also become the next aspects to be included. As a conclusion, before we fly we need to know where are going to land. Because sometimes we are ready with plan but shock in culture.