<p>Agreed, interesteddad. We did it…but not nearly so far and to a much more familiar setting and that was difficult enough. My son has vowed to take Spanish when he moves back to the U.S. for college because he wants to be as able to bridge the gap for America’s fastest-growing population as readily as he wishes more of our hosts here were able to do.</p>
<p>It’s difficult enough doing things like selling my car on-line, helping my 6th grader with math (which, amazingly enough, they do differently!) and trying to return a present at a store.</p>
<p>When I go to the pharmacist and ask for Sudafed, I end up saying it about 5 or 6 times, altering the inflection and changing up the vowel pronunciation, until they understand what I want. But only after giving me a cross-eyed look like I’m an idiot.</p>
<p>The mechanic thinks I’m a total moron…and I can hardly blame him because I’m sure that I leave that impression. And it’s not just language. There are cultural miscues galore. They count floors of buildings beginning at 0, not 1. People with just one or two items get to skip ahead of you in the checkout line at the grocery and you’d be rude to object. If you catch someone’s eye as they look at you, they don’t smile uncomfortably and look away – they keep looking at you directly instead. The worst is how they assume you’ll stop, on a dime, for pedestrians whenever they step in front of your vehicle. I’m honestly surprised that my number of registered kills hasn’t reached double-digits by now.</p>
<p>Oh, and then, to top it all off, there are all the stupid things you do simply because your brain is so fried while trying to make the linguistic and cultural shifts – like not finding your car in a parking garage because you’re on the wrong level. Never happened to me in the U.S.; happened twice to me since moving abroad. I tend to send people unsigned checks because the checks here don’t have a line for signatures. And…so grateful am I to have completed my shopping (which is incredibly stressful because of all the information that has to be processed far more deliberately when doing it in unfamiliar territory, with different brands and different labels and different store layouts, etc.) that I have a habit of leaving my wallet at the register as I drive off thinking my excursion was a success. Oh, and my most recent grocery store receipt says that I have accumulated 6,500 Happy…but I don’t know how to redeem my Happy. And that makes me sad. Yes, the solution is simple: just ask someone. But I think I’ve made it clear that there are enough stressors during my shopping trips already.</p>
<p>Sometimes, at the end of a tough day, I feel like going up to the rooftop and shouting out: “I’m actually not mentally challenged. I have advanced degrees!” but then I realize that I’d probably use a feminine article where a masculine article is called for and the whole point would be lost on my intended audience.</p>
<p>So, shopping for a college abroad? Wow! I feel both empathy and admiration.</p>
<p>perfectpixie, I can’t speak from experience but I can relate to you one factor that my son says appeals to him. He goes to a high school with kids from about 25 different countries. It’s a tiny school and he likes it that way, with good friends from all over the place and not just in his grade. And he thinks Swarthmore delivers that experience better than any other American college he knows of. Not just in terms of international students but in terms of diversity of experiences and backgrounds, too. My own impression is that Swarthmore is not a place where anyone can feel like they’re part of a majority sub-community. I have the sense that pretty much everyone at Swarthmore could feel outnumbered if they chose to identify in that way. So maybe something different is going on. Hopefully some students can speak to that.</p>
<p>I totally relate to the need to make sure there’s a community in place that you can plug into and identify with, just to reinforce the idea that you’re sane and so you can commiserate with all the headaches that come from living abroad. It’s a nice crutch to lean on…but I’ve learned that it can also be a bad habit. I try to resist it as much as possible – though I give in to the temptation too often. If you do find a strong Indian community at the college of your choice, whatever college that may be, try not to lean too heavy on it. For that matter, don’t try to fall in with the mainstream community either. Try to take advantage of the full spectrum of ideas, experiences and wisdom that your cohorts bring to campus from across the globe and even from across the U.S.</p>
<p>And now, having made the point that I can relate to what you’re getting into…forget all of those complaints that I listed above about living abroad. The most memorable, rewarding and amazing experiences for me are the ones that take place outside of the American bubble that many people here try to operate within. Use that Indian group as though it’s the side of a swimming pool: it’s nice to be able to grab hold of, particularly when the water is deep; but it’s much better thought of as something to push off from.</p>
<p>Good luck finding the right place for your college! Bon courage!</p>
