www.wirelessdesignmag.com: A generation ago, students on semester abroad were practically incommunicado, aside from airmailed letters and one or two calls home. These days, from the minute the plane lands, kids studying overseas are connected with home via Skype, Facebook, and messaging apps like Viber and WhatsApp.
3 comments:
Communication goes both ways. During her senior year of high school, my cousin went to study abroad in Italy for a full year, and she found that technology drastically helped her keep in touch with both her family back home as well as her host-family. Ease of access to communication is simple: you don’t have to constantly stay on your phone or computer, but it’s always nice to be able to send a quick update or greeting if you want. Individual students can choose if they wish to use technology to communicate often or rarely, and can decide for themselves whether they would rather stay in touch or go out and explore. Immersion into a culture does take time, but homesickness and familial support are a big issue when away for extended periods. As much fun as snail mail is, it has that name for a reason- it’s slow and inefficient, and now that instant messaging does exist, it shouldn’t be frowned upon whilst studying abroad.
I am a junior in high school and looking forward to attending college and studying abroad. The thought of being home sick never really occurred to me, not because I won’t miss friends and family at home, but more that the whole point of going to college and studying abroad is to meet new people. Constantly being by a smartphone or computer skyping your family will take away from the experience that you could be having. I would hate to look back on my experience aboard and regret that I spent a lot of time on some device. Looking back and thinking about all the cool memories I had is a better way to remember my time aboard. I hope that by saying this, it will motivate me to avoid my smartphone and make my time away from home something to remember. I realize that this won't work for everyone, people have to do their own thing and whatever makes them happy.
I'd always had a real fear of going to college out of state and because of that hadn't really even considered study abroad. It was because of the wide range of communication types that I actually ok'd myself to study so far away from home. I've now come to realize that it wasn't really so big of a deal as i was making it, I hardly call home. I feel like its per the individual in situations like that, for those that need more contact with loved ones I see no reason to police them, they have to do that themselves and be responsible enough to take advantage of the amazing situation they've been put in whole studying abroad.
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